Britain at War 2016-02

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FEBRUARY 2016 ISSUE 106 UK £4.50

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From the Editor...

W

E ADMIT that the release this month of the Dad’s Army feature film did rather trigger our thought processes in the direction of The Home Guard, along with a realisation that it is a topic which doesn’t often get much attention in these pages. So, time to rectify that. Of course, the whole concept of the original TV series was to poke endless fun at the Home Guard although it was true to say that from its very origins it became the butt of fun and outright derision. After all, reasoned many, how on earth were a bunch of old men and boys going to stop Hitler’s Panzer divisions with bayonets strapped to wooden poles or petrol bombs in milk bottles? Certainly, there was a comic air to the whole organisation. From the very outset, this impromptu army was originally called Local Defence Volunteers. For short, this was LDV and this soon earned the hapless part time soldiers a sobriquet: Look, Duck and Vanish. It was hardly an auspicious note on which to found this volunteer army, but it was the foundation, too, of the popular comedy series which generations came to know and love. Despite the comical image of The Home Guard, though, it was all in deadly earnest and our feature on improvised Home Guard vehicles demonstrates forcefully the desperate nature of the times. Interesting, then, to discover what real versions of Lance Corporal Jones’ butcher’s van looked like. Don’t panic! We can show you some of them in this month’s issue.

Andy Saunders (Editor) EDITORIAL

Editor: Andy Saunders Assistant Editor: John Ash Editorial Correspondents: Geoff Simpson, Alex Bowers, Mark Khan, Rob Pritchard Australasia Correspondent: Ken Wright

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All rights reserved. Reproduction in whole or part and in any form whatsoever, is strictly prohibited without the prior, written permission of the Editor. Whilst every care is taken with the material submitted to ‘Britain at War’ Magazine, no responsibility can be accepted for loss or damage. Opinions expressed in this magazine do not necessarily reflect those of the Editor or Key Publishing Ltd. Whilst every effort had been made to contact all copyright holders, the sources of some pictures that may be used are varied and, in many cases, obscure. The publishers will be glad to make good in future editions any error or omissions brought to their attention. The publication of any quotes or illustrations on which clearance has not been given is unintentional. We are unable to guarantee the bonafides of any of our advertisers. Readers are strongly recommended to take their own precautions before parting with any information or item of value, including, but not limited to, money, manuscripts, photographs or personal information in response to any advertisements within this publication.

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FEATURES 18 Reputations

Imperial War Museum Historian, Peter Hart, takes a look the Royal Navy’s Commander-in-Chief at the Battle of Jutland and his subsequent Naval career in our occasional features examining the reputations of wartime leaders.

40 The Home Guard’s Armoured Cars

The most famous Home Guard vehicle is surely the fictional Lance Corporal Jones’ butcher’s van in ‘Dad’s Army’ but the 1940 reality was not very far from the fiction. Alexander Nicol looks at some of reality. Certainly desperate measures for desperate times!

GREAT GIFT

A subscription to Britain at War makes a great gift idea. See pages 64 and 65 for details.

Contents ISSUE 106 FEBRUARY 2016

48 A Stranger to Fear 4

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66 The Silent Sound of Defeat

48 A Stranger to Fear

Editor’s Choice

Armed with only a revolver, Nigel Leakey single-handedly took on a squadron of tanks to turn the tide of battle 75 years ago and earned a Victoria Cross. Steve Snelling charts a story of bravery during the Abyssinian campaign.

66 The Silent Sound of Defeat

During the early summer of 1940 Dunkirk became a maelstrom of destruction until the last British ship had left. We look at the aftermath through the eyes of a young German officer and a remarkable set of photographs.

78 Without a Paddle

During the Korean War an Australian frigate, HMAS Murchison, sailed up a river on the front line, with UN troops on one bank and Communist forces on the other. John Ash describes how the vessel managed to shoot herself out of a deadly Chinese trap.

98 Eject! Eject!

During the Falklands War a number of Argentine aircraft were lost over the islands and Gordon Ramsey examines a selection of these in a fascinating feature article and visits some of the crash sites where remains of the downed aircraft may still be found.

28 Valentine's Day Engagement

When two RAF Typhoon pilots set out on St Valentine’s Day in 1943 to provide air cover for a pair of MTBs in trouble off the French coast they encountered trouble themselves. Mark Crame tells the tragic story.

REGULARS 6 News

News, Restorations, Discoveries and Events from around the World.

38 Fieldpost

Your letters, input and feedback.

76 Image of War

A British soldier inspects captured enemy artillery pieces taken as ‘spoils of war’ after some particularly heavy fighting.

89 War Memorials

In our continuing series in which we look at some of Britain’s war memorials with the War Memorials Trust, Geoff Simpson visits Ashbury in Oxfordshire.

90 War Posters

In the second of our series, Phil Jarman looks at a recruiting poster born out of the German bombardment of Scrarborough.

96 First World War Diary

We chart some of the principal events of the First World War, one hundred years ago, on a monthly basis. This month we reach February 1916.

92 Recon Report

Our regular look at new books and products, including our Book of the Month, ‘Fritz & Tommy’, a study of the British and German experience on the Western Front 1914-1918.

108 Great War Gallantry

COVER STORY

Sqn Ldr 'Stapme' Stapleton DFC of 247 Sqn attacks German railway targets in his Typhoon on 28 November 1944 with rockets and cannon. In this action, one locomotive was destroyed and fifteen trucks 'blew up with a large red flash.' From a painting by Mark Postlethwaite. (See our Typhoon feature on page 28 which looks at this remarkable aircraft.)

As the First World War rolled on, so announcements of British and ❅ Commonwealth gallantry awards inexorably increased in The London Gazette. This month we examine some of those announced in ❅ February 1916. Lord Ashcroft also selects his ‘Hero of The Month’.

❅

114 The First World War in Objects

❅

This month we look at the most feared of all First World War official communications; the chilling telegram sent out to notify next of kin of the death of a loved one on active service.

NEWS FEATURES 16 Lee Miller Exhibition

Lee Miller was among World War Two's most notable photographers. We review an exhibition of her work at the Imperial War Musuem including her iconic 'Hitler's Bath' image. www.britainatwar.com

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News • Restorations • Discoveries • Events • Exhibitions from around the UK

Great Escaper’s Rolex Watch A Rolex watch worn by one of the British POW Great Escapers from Stalag Luft III has sold at auction for £165,000. Originally owned by Flt Lt Jack Williams, the watch, as well as other related items, went under the hammer in Buckinghamshire and exceeded an estimated sale price of £30,000 £50,000 Alex Bowers reports. ‘A HUGE amount of interest emerged two weeks prior, and on the day the bidding was absolutely incredible. A number of people travelled to be in the room from all over the globe – it was quite phenomenal’ said Auctioneer Simon Brown. The 1943 stainless steel black dialled Rolex Oyster Chronograph watch is set to remain in the UK and has been bought by ‘a very serious military collector’. Its overall condition was described as ‘exceptional’ by Mr. Brown, who highlighted the fact that its unique history with links to the infamous Great Escape made it particularly special. Jack Williams signed up for the RAF Volunteer Reserve in 1940, aged 22, and was commissioned. After joining Bomber Command, Flt Lt. Williams was posted to 107 Squadron in Norfolk, flying Douglas Boston bombers and taking part in daylight raids on occupied Europe.

BULLETIN BOARD

ABOVE: The back of the watch and the inside

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MARKING THE 100th anniversary of the Sopwith 1½ Strutter aircraft, a team of volunteers have constructed a working replica which is set to fly early this year. The Aviation Preservation Society of Scotland has raised upwards of £45,000 through the National Museums of Scotland (NMS) private and commercial donations and crowd funding - which alone has raised £8,000. The original prototype of the First World War aircraft was first introduced into service in April 1916. It was the unmistakable forerunner to the infamous Sopwith Camel and it was given the name 1½ Strutter because of the one-and-a-half (long and short) pairs of cabane struts supporting the top wing.

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ABOVE: The Rolex watch that sold at auction for £165,000. LEFT: Jack Williams in his RAF uniform, 1941.

However, on 27 April, 1942, Jack’s aircraft was shot down by German fighters during an attack on a power station near Lille. He baledout of the plummeting aircraft and landed safely, although was quickly captured. After interrogation he was transferred to Stalag Luft III. It was during his time in captivity that Flt Lt. Williams obtained his watch through a token of good-will from the Rolex Company. Under the Geneva Convention, military issue watches could be

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ONE OF the last surviving crew from the turrets of HMS King George V as she sank the Bismarck has died on his 103rd birthday. William Herbert ‘Bert’ Millener, a Royal Marine, had previously spoke of his experiences, describing the claustrophobia and the determination to avenge HMS Hood. He reflected: ‘People say it was a ‘‘good show’’, but your first thought is that they were servicemen, the same as we were.’

seized on capture but not personally owned ones. As a result, Hans Wilsdorf, the managing director of Rolex in Switzerland, established an extraordinary scheme which saw British POWs able to place orders on watches that would be delivered to the prison camp, with payment deferred until the conflict was over. Flt Lt. Williams took advantage of the offer and placed an order for a top of the range Rolex which was received at the camp in Sagan,

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A WEST Bridgeford man, who campaigned for a memorial to the forgotten men who worked in the coal mines during World War II, has been awarded the British Empire Medal. 88 year old Harry Parkes was one of 48,000 ‘Bevin Boys’ conscripted to work in the mines between December 1943 to March 1948.

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ABOVE & LEFT: More images of Jack Williams including a photo taken at Stalag Luft III before his escape attempt (Bottom middle right).

Poland, in a Red Cross parcel. In 1943 plans were being made by a group of Allied prisoners to escape from the camp through tunnel systems leading out beyond the barbed wire. The break-out was immortalised in the 1963 Steve McQueen film, ‘The Great Escape’, which depicted the 76 Allied prisoners and their bid for freedom through the three tunnels named ‘Tom’, ‘Dick’ and ‘Harry’. The

auction Lot Number, 67, reflected Flt Lt. Williams’ designated number in the queue for escaping from the ‘Harry’ tunnel on that fateful night in March 1944. Martyn Perrin of Bourne End Auctions had carried out detailed research into the watch and its original owner and said: ‘Jack Williams played a prominent part in the construction of the escape tunnel, hence his relatively high number in the queue.’ Sadly, Jack Williams was unsuccessful in his attempt to get away and was later one of fifty selected to be executed. However,

the RAF officer had given this remarkable timepiece to fellow POW Sergeant Donald Wilson, with instructions to return it to his family in case anything happened to him. Sgt. Wilson kept his word and after the war visited his dead comrade’s parents to pass on the watch. In a 2008 Yorkshire Post interview, Donald Wilson recalled Jack’s words to him: ‘He said: ‘I know I’ll not get away, I can’t possibly get away, so I’ll probably see you in the next fortnight.’ Unfortunately, Sgt. Wilson never saw him again. The watch remained with Mrs. Williams and was later passed down to her only son’s third cousin in the 1980s. Mr.

Perrin said: ‘The watch was owned by a third cousin, I think, who decided rather than hang on to it to sell it to somebody who would value it more. He has three children who are all at university and I believe he will use some of the money to pay their university fees.’ As well as the watch, other items included in the sale were personal and wartime photographs of Jack Williams, his medals, RAF brevets and correspondence from the camp. Jack’s friend and comrade Donald Wilson is remembered by his son James Wilson, who was very pleased with the outcome of the Auction. He said: ‘We are quite staggered by the amount. The whole family is absolutely delighted it has made such a lot of money. Dad would be pleased, too.’

ABOVE: Douglas Bostons of 107 Sqn, 1942.

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THE FUNERAL of a late RAF veteran who served in the Second World War has seen the attendance of almost 100 people after he passed away without any family. A Facebook appeal for the late 94 year old, John Davies, saw many members of the public answer the call to be attendees to the veteran’s service in Gorleston. Mr. Davies spent time in the U.S, Canada and India with the RAF but his funeral was due to be poorly attended. The morning of his service saw almost 100 people turn out to pay their respects and see him in his final journey.

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FOR A second time a memorial to rugby players who lost their lives in World War One has been defaced at the Bristol Rovers’ memorial gates. In 2010 Bristol City fans raised funds for a clean-up after tags associated with the club were sprayed on the memorial.

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A NEW memorial has been unveiled in the USA dedicated to an RAF pilot from Swansea, who died on a training mission in America during 1943. Plt Of John H G Moriarty was among a number of RAF service personnel sent to the USA to train in American fighter aircraft. He was among other pilots who died during a routine training flight over California.

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BRIEFING ROOM |

THE WRECK of the SS Richard Montgomery in the Thames Estuary, offshore from Sheerness, has long caused anxiety in north Kent and south Essex in the event that its deadly cargo of munitions should spontaneously explode. Notwithstanding the fact that the vessel is under constant 24-hour surveillance by the Marine & Coastguard Agency, and regularly surveyed, the ship continues to cause anxiety. Such anxiety is due in part to the state of the ordnance on board being a completely unknown factor in terms of its current stability. The vessel, an American Liberty Ship, was wrecked off the Nore sandbank on 20 August 1944 and was bringing a cargo of munitions, mostly aircraft bombs, in support of post D-Day operations when she dragged her anchor and ran aground on a sandbank. When the tide went down, the Richard Montgomery broke her back and settled deeper into the mud and sand although not before some of her cargo of explosives was salvaged. When salvage was

News • Restorations • Discoveries • Events • Exhibitions from around the UK

What Lies Beneath

abandoned, however, a total of 1,500 tons of bombs and other munitions remained on board. These explosives are still there, and it is a continual fear that the degradation of fuses or explosives might alone trigger an explosion, or else partial collapses of parts of the ships superstructure might trigger a chain reaction. In the event that the whole cargo should explode, it is estimated that blast and a surge of water could cause untold damage to the surrounding area. For these reasons, there is an exclusion area around the wreck and regular surveys are conducted. Successive governments, though, have elected to do nothing about the wreck based on cost, and on what is perceived as low-risk, whereas an expensive salvage operation might well have the undesired effect of resulting in an explosion. Part of the on-going monitoring, however, has seen an underwater scan of the vessel being carried out in order that the Marine & Coastguard Agency can better assess the condition of the ship and

its rate of decay. Now, the Marine & Coastguard Agency have released this remarkable scanned image to us. In a statement about the scan, the MCA stated: ‘The image of the SS Richard Montgomery is generated from multibeam sonar data of the wreck structure beneath the water and laser data for the wreck structure which is visible above the water. These two datasets are them merged to create geo-referenced, measurable 3D images of the wreck in its

entirety. The MCA has used multibeam and laser technology to survey the SS Richard Montgomery for a number of years. With advances in technology and date processing software, data quality has improved and, as a result, we tend to see greater definition and detail in the images which allows us to get a better picture of the wreck and its current state.’ At all states of tide, the masts of the Richard Montgomery are visible; silent pointers to what lies beneath.

ABOVE: 3D image of the wreck of the SS Richard Montgomery generated from multibeam sonar data.

Death of Officer Who Captured Enigma Machine

BULLETIN BOARD

BELOW: Lieutenant Commander David Balme.

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A 96-year-old veteran from Barnet who was part of the force that liberated the concentration camp at Bergen Beslen has been told that his mobility scooter could be seen as a terrorist threat. Frank Curtis, who was wounded when he was blown out of a Universal Carrier in Northwest Europe, frequented his local shopping centre but requires use of his scooter, which he parks outside shops. Supermarket security staff left the truculent note stating that leaving the scooter unattended in present times is an ‘unacceptable practice’. A spokeswoman for the establishment has apologised to Mr Curtis and stated that the note, left after members of the public raised concerns, was inappropriate.

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LIEUTENANT COMMANDER David Balme, who has died aged 95, led the naval boarding party that captured Enigma secrets from a stricken U-boat, writes Philip Curtis. On 9 May 1941, Sub-Lieutenant Balme was serving in the destroyer HMS Bulldog, escorting a westbound Atlantic convoy, which came under attack from U-110. Two Allied ships were sunk, but Royal Navy ships launched an attack which led to the submarine being abandoned. Balme and his party reached the vessel in Bulldog’s whaler and spent several hours acquiring anything that looked valuable. It was Telegraphist Alan Long who found what he considered to be “a

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THE OFTEN forgotten contribution of Caribbean soldiers fighting with the Allied forces in the World Wars is soon to be given recognition in a new series of initiatives headed by one of the leading British-Caribbean charities in the UK. The project will include an interactive website with a variety of searchable archives, a new e-book and an exhibition at the museum of London, Dockyards which will be on display until May 2nd 2016.

funny sort of instrument, sir, a bit like a typewriter.” Balme ordered that this Enigma machine, as it turned out to be, should be unscrewed and it was carried onto the whaler and into Allied hands. Later Balme received the DSC and Long the DSM, though they were sworn to secrecy over the exact reason for the awards. David Balme’s naval career included spells in cruisers during the Spanish Civil War and service on the Palestine Patrol. He saw action against the Italian fleet in the heavy cruiser HMS Berwick. He became an Observer in the Fleet Air Arm and was a Fighter Direction Officer in the battlecruiser, HMS Renown.

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THE CWGC is encouraging the public to commemorate one of the UK's worst naval disasters 100 years on. Over 390 died when HMS Natal capsized and sank after an internal explosion set off ammunition. The explosion occurred after a social function in Cromarty Firth, meaning members of the public were on board in addition to the ship’s crew.

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News • Restorations • Discoveries • Events • Exhibitions from around the UK

RAF Spitfire Pilot’s Centenary FLT LT Hugh Parry (260, 266, 601 & 41 Sqns) celebrated his one hundredth birthday in late October 2015, which was marked by a flypast by a 41 Squadron Typhoon over his home and a visit by one of the Squadron’s officers who presented him with a print signed by the Squadron’s aircrew writes Steve Brew. Following service with 260, 266, and 601 Sqns in the United Kingdom and Malta in 1941-42, Hugh returned to the UK at the end of his tour in July 1942. He was then posted to Vickers Armstrong at Southampton, where he became a Test Pilot and flew seven different Spitfire Marks. On account of his knowledge of and experience with the Spitfire XII, he was posted to 41 Sqn as a Supernumerary Flight

Hugh evaded immediate capture and managed to contact the Resistance, which hid him in numerous locations until 7 February 1944 when he was betrayed and arrested by the Gestapo. Following interrogation, he was sent to Stalag Luft III in sufficient time to witness ‘The Great Escape’, but arrived too late to participate. Forced marches followed in January-April 1945, until he was liberated in Lübeck in late April. Though born in Dartford, Kent, on 29 October 1915, Hugh was working in Northern Rhodesia immediately prior to the war and therefore carried the insignia “Rhodesia” on his shoulder throughout the war. He travelled back to Rhodesia after the war to continue working as a mine surveyor until 1983. Upon his retirement, he returned to the United Kingdom, and now resides in a nursing home near Bradford on Avon. Hugh’s family travelled home from across the globe to celebrate his birthday in October, and he

ABOVE: Hugh Parry is presented with a signed print from the present day 41 Squadron RAF.

received congratulatory messages from HM The Queen, the current OC 41 Sqn, Wg Cdr Steve Berry, MBE, and several former OCs 41 Sqn, the Director General of International Military Staff at NATO in Brussels, AM Sir Christopher

Harper KBE, the AOC 1 Group AVM Gary Waterfall, CBE, and the Station Commander of RAF Marham, Gp Capt Rich Davies. Hugh is the oldest of 41 Squadron’s six remaining Second World War veterans.

LEFT: Hugh Parry pictured during the Second World War. BELOW: Spitfire XII, aircraft of 41 Squadron.

BULLETIN BOARD

Lieutenant in March 1943 to train the Squadron’s pilots, No. 41 being the first front line unit to receive the Mark. In May 1943, he took over as OC A Flight and subsequently participated in a large number of ‘Ramrod’ bomber escorts to the Continent, at times leading 41 Squadron on operations, until he was shot down and wounded on a Ramrod to Beauvais on 24 September 1943.

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A PLAQUE dedicated to the memory of two Second World War pilots who lost their lives in a plane crash has been unveiled at the site of the incident. Sergeant Robert Norwood, aged 19 and Sergeant Irvine Jackson, aged 23 tragically died when their Bristol Beaufighter suffered from engine failure during a training mission and crashed near Hutton Mill Bridge, Berwickshire. A ceremony was held last month with the attendance of their descendants to unveil the commemorative plaque near the bridge. The service included an address from Sergeant Norwood’s nephew, David Geddes, who described the fifteen years of painstaking research it took to get the plaque mounted.

10 www.britainatwar.com

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A LOST episode of the BBC’s Dad’s Army, the series which immortalised the LDV/Home Guard, has been animated to tie in with the release of the new feature film ‘Dad’s Army’ by Universal Pictures – 39 years after the airing of the last episode. The animation has been created from recovered high-quality audio recording of the episode, as the original footage has been lost, discarded or taped over.

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A SOMME veteran has been given a final resting place after his 1929 burial without ceremony meant he previously laid in an unmarked grave in Edinburgh. However, Sergeant William Duguid is now remembered with a new memorial installed by the McCrae’s Battalion Trust celebrated by veterans and descendants and serving members of the Royal Regiment of Scotland.

The Memorial Pegasus museum

is dedicated to the men of 6th British Airborne Division. The 1st liberators to arrive in Normandy on June 6th 1944. Archive films, a guided visit and many interesting and authentic objects enable the visitors to relive this momentous time. The original Pegasus Bridge is on display in the park of the museum along with a full size copy of a wartime Horsa glider.

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Eighth Air Force Memorial Comes Home AN ORIGINAL USAAF mural has returned to Bottisham airfield after a 28 year absence. The mural was removed from the Red Cross Aero Club in Bottisham in 1987 by the Eighth Air Force Wall Art Conservation Society prior to the building’s demolition. It depicts a flying tractor with a line from the air force song: “Off we go into the wild blue yonder." It is now the centrepiece of Bottisham Airfield Museum’s new-build Nissen hut and has been carefully installed in one of the cavity walls. The hut is being built to house the museum’s collection whilst money is raised via the Heritage Lottery Fund to restore historic buildings on the site which include the 375th Fighter Squadron’s ready room, Squadron Leader’s office, intelligence room, air crew changing room, sleeping

shelter and latrine. Many of these rooms will be restored to exactly how they were on the 6 June 1944. The mural had been on display at the 100th BG Museum at Thorpe’s Abbot, and Bottisham Airfield Museum are very grateful to all at Thorpe Abbotts who have allowed the mural to come ‘home’. The move was presided over by one of the team who removed it, Peter Dyer. Peter, despite being in his sixties, regularly helps out as a volunteer at Bottisham. Jason Webb, Chairman of the Trustees at Bottisham Airfield Museum said “We are very grateful to Peter and his team for saving these wonderful murals and we think it will make a superb centre piece.” The museum hopes to open the hut from May of this year with a collection of artefacts to show

ABOVE: The newly installed flying tractor mural.

the diverse history of the airfield including its use by the RAF, USAAF and Belgians. Progress of the build can be followed on the group’s website www. bottishamairfieldmuseum.org.

uk and on the group’s Facebook page. Opening dates will shortly be announced and publicised online and in this magazine. Work continues apace with the development of this musuem.

Poppies Weeping Window THE WEEPING Window of Poppies display at St Georges Hall, Liverpool, was installed in early November ahead of the national Remembrance Day commemorations. With the poppies drawn from the original installation at the Tower of London, the poppies in Liverpool cascade from the ceiling of the hall’s colonnade down to the steps. A wall of sandbags, symbolic in their own

PLACES TO VISIT

THE LAST Irish Soldier to be pardoned for fighting with Great Britain during the Second World War has died aged 94. Phil Farrington was one of an estimated 5,000 men of the Irish Defence Forces (IDF) who went ‘AWOL’ in order to join the Allied forces. Ireland remained neutral during the conflict, and in 1945 an

way, protected the lower part of the installation from public access. Whilst not quite so dramatic as the Tower of London display in terms of number of poppies, the location opposite Liverpool’s grade 1 listed Cenotaph and at the site of a rally point for those wishing to join the city’s Pals battalion, is certainly poignant and attracted a great many visitors throughout its

period of installation which ended on January 17. On one occasion, the public were joined by personnel from HMS Eaglet, the Northwest’s naval HQ and reservist hub, who paid their respects at the display. The Liverpool poppy display was part of a nation-wide tour of the Blood Swept Lands and Seas of Red display from the Tower of London. Next season’s display will be at Caernarfon Castle.

Pardoned Irish Soldier Dies emergency order was passed listing the consequences for “desertion in a time of National emergency.” When Mr. Farrington returned to his homeland after the war he was arrested and imprisoned. Mr. Farrington was believed to be the last known surviving veteran to be pardoned when he passed away at a veteran’s hospital in Dublin late

last year. Grandson Patrick Martin said: “He did not want to talk about it. I grew up with him and constantly enquired about the war, what it was like – like any young kid would be interested to hear.” When Mr. Farrington left Cork prison he found himself subjected to further consequences of his“desertion” including the inability to hold

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Gulf War Commemorations National Memorial Arboretum, Staffordshire, 28th February To mark the 25th Anniversary of the Gulf War, a new memorial will be dedicated to the 47 British personnel who died during the conflict. The dedication service will begin at 10.30am, at the memorial site. Darning and Yarning HMS Belfast, London, 21st February Take part is in this family drop in session aboard the famous wartime cruiser as visitors sew away to create a new sailors’ cross stitch work and find out more about the Royal Navy and life when serving on board HMS Belfast.

state jobs and the revoking of his pension. It was not until Queen Elizabeth’s historic visit to Ireland in 2011 that a campaign began to see these Irish soldiers pardoned. In 2012 the Irish government apologised for the manner in which these men had been treated, and in May 2013 issued an official pardon to all the veterans involved.

The Martial Races of India: Recruitment by Ethnicity in the British Indian Army - Army & Navy Club, Pall Mall, London, 22nd February Book in advance and for this fascinating lecture by Jasdeep Singh at 12.30pm where he uses new content from the National Army Museum’s Indian Army collection to examine how certain races in India were identified, studied and groomed to form regiments in the British Indian Army. Sussex Military History Society Tim’s War - Rifleman Timothy Elliot, 16th March Join Robin Gregory as he gives a lecture on the story of Rifleman Timothy Elliot in Station Road’s The Royal Oak, 8pm start. Contact: 01273 474803

www.britainatwar.com 13

BRIEFING ROOM |

News • Restorations • Discoveries • Events • Exhibitions from around the UK

'Bloody Christmas' Medal Rescue Boat Rescued

A 78 year old British Veteran has been awarded The General Service Medal for his actions during the ‘Bloody Christmas’ of the TurkishGreek conflict of 1963. The outbreak of tension occurred on the night of December 21/22 when Turkish troops raided Greek villages and communities in Cyprus. Philip Backler, who served with the RAF from 1955 to 1967, volunteered himself to assist with the situation. He said: “The British were not directly involved, but all hell broke loose. They asked for volunteers to help keep the women and children

safe, so I put myself forward.” Mr. Backler was a transport driver during the time the Turkish attacked whereupon he covered his truck in a white sheet to disguise himself as a member of the Red Cross. Despite the dangers of being caught, Mr Backler transported around two dozen women and children to safety, driving them 12 miles in a cramped seven-tonne truck back to the British base in Akrotiri. Mr Backler said: “lots of servicemen have missed out on medals. It would mean a lot to them to be given them, even years on.”

Lightship Restoration Campaign A LIGHTSHIP used by the Canadians on D-Day which is now rusting in the River Neath is now the centre of a restoration campaign. The 112-year-old lightship, LV72 (codenamed Juno) safeguarded thousands of lives by guiding ships through a minefield as part of Operation Overlord, was built in 1903 for the Trinity House Lighthouse and Light Vessel Authority and used the same hull plate and rivet construction parts as the Titanic. She now sits on a mud bank on the Welsh river.

Amateur historian Daniel Broom has launched a campaign to restore LV72 as a memorial to the war effort and to the Canadian troops she guided. She has been laid up since 1972, and was sold for scrap to a steel supply company in Neath but never broken up. However, ownership of the vessel has to be confirmed before any work begins. Although the ship is relatively complete, the lower decks are flooded and the hull is deteriorating, and any restoration project faces a race against time.

Dorset, until January 1944. It then took on anti-submarine target towing duties in Kirkwall before joining the 69th ML Flotilla at Felixstowe. In 1947, RML 497 entered service as the Western Lady III between Brixham and Torquay until 2007 when she was sold and renamed Fairmile to act as a ferry at Torbay before she was returned to its wartime colours in 2013. Stuart McLeod, head of HLF South East, said: “Thanks to National Lottery players, our investment will bring the best surviving example of a Fairmile B motor launch to Portsmouth, creating an exciting new attraction for the historic dockyard and ensuring the contribution of those who worked on this vessel is much betterknown.”

ABOVE: Rescue Motor Launch (RML) 497.

Medal Haul Returned

BELOW: The rusting hulk of LV72.

AFTER MORE than 40 years since their theft, loaned wartime medals at a Museum in Lichfield City have been rediscovered and returned to their display. A total of 43 medals belonging to members of many Staffordshire regiments covering various campaigns from the Peninsular War to World War I were stolen from the museum during a raid in 1974. Of the 43 priceless decorations, 25 have been recovered with the location of the remaining 18 still unknown. Museum spokesman James Whittacker said: “It was

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Cheltenham and Gloucester Branch Phil Tomaselli will talk about ‘The Royal Naval Air Service’ on 9th February starting at 1930. Venue: National Star College, Ullenwood, Cheltenham, GL53 9QU. Contact: [email protected] 01242 691422. All welcome.

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Cleveland Branch Dr Phylomena Badsey will talk about ‘Roland Leighton – A Hero to Three Women’ on the 16th February starting at 1930. Venue: The Royal Naval Club, William Street, Stockton-on-Tees TS18 1DN. Contact: 07990 784605. [email protected] Open to all.

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(ALAN D. KEALL)

PLACES TO VISIT

A BOAT that was invaluable to the rescue of downed airmen in the Second World War is due to go on display after more than 60 years working a ferry. The Rescue Motor Launch (RML) 497 has been purchased by the National Museum of the Royal Navy (NMRN) in Portsmouth with a Heritage Lottery Fund grant of £90,600 and an additional £5000 each from the NMRN and the Coastal Forces Heritage Fund (CFHT.) Nick Hewitt, head of the heritage development at the NMRN, said: “She’s an amazing survivor, full of original features and still fully operational, which is incredible for a wooden warship built for ‘hostilities-only’ service during the Second World War.” The small vessel served with the 62nd ML Flotilla at Portland,

Lancashire and Cheshire Branch. The story of James Walter Sandilands and his rise from Captain to Brigadier General on the Western Front will be told in ‘Monty’s Mentor’ by Terry Dean on 12 February at 1930. Venue: The TA Centre, The Armouries, Greek Street, Stockport SK3 8AB. Contact: Terry Jackson 01663 740987. All welcome.

an unexpected surprise when the museum’s research team spotted some of the medals available for purchase in the militaria market and after working closely with the vendor and some of the new owners, the return of all 25 medals was negotiated.” Decorations included the Distinguished Service Order, The Distinguished Conduct Medal, The Military Medal and the British Empire Medal. “This unexpected return is a true occasion for celebration, bringing the history of so many acts of heroism back to a the museum.'

Avon Branch The first trench to trench battle fought by the BEF features in ‘Foretaste of the Future – The Battle of Neuve Chapelle’ by Ross Beadle on 17 February at 1945. Venue: Royal British Legion (Kingswood), Regent Street, Kingswood, Bristol BS15 8JX. Contact: [email protected] 0117 9614270. Open to all.

Britain at War Magazine is pleased to support the Western Front Association in listing a monthly selection of WFA events around the country. For more information, go to: http://www.westernfrontassociation.com/

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NEWS FEATURE |

Lee Miller: A Woman's War

Lee Miller

A Woman’s War

GIVEN THAT participation in War is often described as one of the most surreal of human activities it is entirely appropriate that Lee Miller, one of the most important combat photographers of the Second World War was steeped in the surrealist movement of pre-war Paris writes Andy Brockman. Now, Lee Miller’s experience of World War Two, both as photographer and as a woman, is the subject of a rich and thought provoking exhibition at the Imperial War Museum, curated by Hilary Roberts with the assistance of Lee’s son, Antony Penrose, who administers the Lee Miller Archive.  The exhibition uses Lee’s physical and emotional journey, seen mostly through the apparently objective eye of her camera, to capture moments from her many journeys, both in uniform and in civilian clothes, undertaken by the women of Western Europe during the war years. Not that on the outbreak of war anyone among the fashionable American expatriate and European artistic circles Lee moved among in Bohemian London would have predicted her taking such a journey. An American socialite who had appeared on the cover of American ‘Vogue’, by 1939 Lee Miller was better known as the former lover and muse of the great photographer Man Ray, a friend of Pablo Picasso and as the lover of British surrealist and soon to be camouflage expert for the War Office, Roland Penrose, who she would marry post-war. In June 1940 Lee was investigated by MI5 as a potential Soviet spy because of Penrose’s links to left wing supporters of Republican Spain, while German refugee Paul Hamann barely had time to sculpt Lee’s naked torso before being interned as an enemy Alien under the Defence Regulations, in spite of being declared a degenerate artist by the Nazi regime.  TOP RIGHT: Lee Miller in steel helmet specially designed for using a camera, Normandy, 1944. (THE PENROSE COLLECTION) RIGHT: Fire masks, Downshire Hill, London, England, 1941. (LEE MILLER ARCHIVES) TOP RIGHT (OPPOSITE PAGE): Irmgard Seefried, Opera singer, singing an aria from 'Madame Butterfly', Vienna Opera House, Vienna, Austria, 1945. (LEE MILLER ARCHIVES) FAR RIGHT: Lee Miller in Hitler's bathtub, Hitler's apartment, Munich, Germany, 1945. (LEE MILLER ARCHIVES)

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Lee Miller: A Woman's War By this time Lee was already shooting photo essays and spreads for British Vogue on behalf of the Ministry of Information. The articles were designed to show the multiple roles of women in war, such as the ATS Sergeant photographed with all the style of a vogue fashion model in July 1940 and, at a more practical level, encouraging thrift in fashion through spreads such as ‘Fashion for Factories’ in May 1941. Accused of frivolity, British Vogue had been given the choice of publishing these articles or being closed down to save paper. However, in 1942 everything changed for Lee when her friend, fellow photographer and sometimes lover, David E Scherman, suggested that she became accredited as an official US War Photographer. As Scherman and the exhibition tells, what began almost as prank and a way to obtain stockings and chocolate at the PX, turned into Lee Miller’s vocation as she found herself in the frontline and able to document the liberation of Europe first hand. In an exhibition rich with thought provoking images many stand out as the product of Lee’s surrealist sensibility. The image of two ‘Vogue’ models photographed in the entrance of Lee’s air raid shelter while wearing ARP face masks is well known. Less well known, but just as memorable, is the almost equally surreal image of opera singer Irmgard Seefried posed in silhouette amid the bombed out Vienna Opera House. Others are pure photojournalism, such as the first moments of the Cold War captured in the posed shots of Soviet and US troops meeting at Torgau and

the propaganda portrait of Lenin, photographed in Kärtner Strasse, Vienna. Some of the most moving images, for example that of a group of young WRNS stewards relaxing in the sun can only be the product of a female photographer  because they reflect an informality and intimacy which a male photographer might not recognise, let alone obtain. Even more intimate is the close up of a young French woman, head shaved and accused of collaboration, who simply stares into the lower left corner of the frame. Coolly objective, and the product of someone with an eye for the traditions of European Art, is an image of the dead body of nurse and daughter of the Nazi Municipal Treasurer of Leipzig, Regina Lisso, lying full length on the leather

sofa where she committed suicide along with her parents. Lisso’s body is lit by daylight from a window, her head thrown back like a Renaissance Pieta.     It was the dark martyrdoms of the end of the Reich which provided some of Lee’s most powerful work. Not least her images of Dachau Concentration Camp published in American Vogue entitled: 'Believe It’. Also from this time is the enduring image of Lee taking control of history by symbolically washing away the filfth of both Dachau and the Nazi regime in the tiled bathtub of Hitler’s own Munich flat. As her active role in the war came to an end, Lee took part in a Pathé News report on her homecoming to London which also forms part of the exhibition. In the course of the short film, Lee appears to readopt the role of a civilian woman, seeming to almost breast feed a new kitten and shedding her fatigues in favour of a dress. However, the pretence set up for the camera hid a darker reality which is hinted at in Lee’s audibly strained voice in an interview for US radio. In truth she was already suffering from back pain brought on by constant travel by jeep on rough wartime roads and what would now be categorised as Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. This, coming on top of a previous psychological vulnerability, led to the bulk of her post-war life becoming a constant battle with depression and the bottle. By the mid 1950s she had even hung up her cameras. However, for Vogue’s accidental combat photographer there was to be a happy ending of sorts. After her death

| NEWS FEATURE

in 1977 her son, Anthony, rediscovered his mother’s archive just at the time the importance of photojournalism was being recognised. The result is that Lee Miller’s place in that history is assured and this exhibition shows it is thoroughly deserved.   Approaching the exit to the exhibition the experience, largely monochrome with splashes of olive drab, leaps forward thirty years and bursts into colour. In a life-size image, shot for a feature article in 1972, Lee is shown directing her surrealist sensibility into the preparation of food, where as a cordon bleu trained cook and soon to be owner of one of the first microwave ovens in Britain, she stands at the table of her Sussex kitchen making a Summer Pudding. At first glance it is almost as if, towards the end of her life, she surrendered to convention and adopted a traditional woman’s role. Except that her eyes meet the viewer and challenges with the unvoiced thought underpinning Miller’s career: 'This is my space, my choice and my Art and I am in control.' It is a fitting and upbeat ending to what is a moving and essential exhibition. 

LEE MILLER EXHIBITION LEE MILLER- A WOMAN’S WAR Imperial War Museum, Lambeth until 24 April 2016 Opening Hours: Daily 10.00-18.00 [Last Admission 17.30] Tickets: £10, Concessions £7, Children and Art Fund members £5, IWM Members Free http://www.iwm.org.uk/exhibitions/iwmlondon/lee-miller-a-woman-s-war#tickets

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REPUTATIONS

ADMIRAL SIR JOHN JELLICOE the man who wasn't nelson

When Admiral Sir John Jellicoe sailed the Royal Navy’s Grand Fleet in to do battle with the German Navy at the Battle of Jutland in May 1916 he carried with him a huge responsibility. With that responsibility went the very real prospect of losing the war in a single engagement. Historian Peter Hart discusses how he acquitted himself that day and whether history has subsequently treated him fairly. EPUTATIONS ARE strange things. Our modern age sometimes seems to revel in getting the wrong end of the stick. There is an admiration for the slick, the shallow and the ‘flashy’ in preference to the solid virtues of intelligence, courage, selfless commitment and loyalty. Nowhere is this better illustrated than in the widespread failure to recognise the worth of service given by Admiral Sir John Jellicoe in the Great War. He commanded the Grand Fleet, the greatest assembly of ships Britain ever amassed. When war began, popular opinion expected a huge Trafalgar-style battle to sweep the seas clean of the German High Seas Fleet. Instead, nothing much seemed to happen. While the British Expeditionary Force battled against the mighty German Army on the Western Front, the much-vaunted fleet seemed to be doing little or nothing. When ‘Der Tag’ finally arrived on 31 May 1916 with the Battle of Jutland, there was nothing but disappointment and a tremendous loss of both ships and men. Someone must be to blame,

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and Jellicoe was the obvious culprit: it was his ‘timidity’ that was at fault, and in sharp contrast to the ‘derring do’ of his dashing subordinate, Vice Admiral Sir David Beatty. If only Beatty had been in command at Jutland, then a new Trafalgar might have changed the course of the whole war. But the real situation was far more complex than such a cartoon picture of the war at sea.

BULLET IN HIS LUNG

John Jellicoe was born on 5 December 1859. He was sent as a cadet to the training ship Britannia at the tender age of 12. Although brought up in an age of sail, Jellicoe soon showed a willingness to embrace modern technology as applied to naval warfare. His evident intelligence was allied to a notable capacity for hard work, which saw him progress with distinction through the ranks to be promoted to Commander by 1891. He specialised in gunnery, and attracted the attention of ‘Jackie’ Fisher who was very much the ‘coming man’ of the late Victorian Navy. Then, as Captain, he was caught up in the Boxer Rebellion of 1900. Chinese insurgents had besieged »

REPUTATIONS ADMIRAL SIR JOHN JELLICOE Nickname(s) 'Hell Fire Jack Born 5 December 1859 Died 20 November 1935 (aged 75) Allegiance United Kingdom Service/branch Royal Navy (1872–1919) Rank Admiral of the Fleet Commands HMS Centurion, HMS Drake, Atlantic Fleet, Grand Fleet First Sea Lord Battles/wars Anglo-Egyptian War, Boxer Rebellion, World War I, Battle of Jutland Awards Knight Grand Cross of the Order of the Bath, Member of the Order of Merit, Knight Grand Cross of the Royal Victorian Order, Sea Gallantry Medal Retirement He also served as the Governor-General of New Zealand in the early 1920s.

BOTTOM LEFT (OPPOSITE): Admiral John Jellicoe (5 December 1859 – 20 November 1935), pictured wearing the uniform of Admiral of the Fleet, the rank he attained in 1919. BELOW: Jellicoe aboard HMS Iron Duke.

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REPUTATIONS

ABOVE: The Royal Navy’s battlecruiser HMS Indomitable pictured in port. She damaged the German battlecruisers Seydlitz and Derfflinger during the Battle of Jutland.

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the European embassies in Peking and Jellicoe was appointed Chief of Staff to a makeshift Anglo-German naval brigade sent to attempt their rescue. On 21 June 1900, he led an attack on a Chinese village. Jellicoe recalled the trauma of what followed. I was hit on the left side of the chest, the shock turning me half round. I thought my left arm had gone. Sat down on a stone, and Cross came, cut away the sleeve of tunic and shirt, and helped me behind a house where I lay down. After a bit Dr Sibbald came up and bandaged wound and told me that he thought I was finished. I made my will on a bit of paper and gave it to my coxswain. I was spitting up a lot of blood and thought the wound was probably mortal. The doctor’s gloomy prognostications proved wrong as Jellicoe was evacuated and would make a good recovery although he carried the bullet in his left lung for the rest of his life.

THE ‘NEW NELSON’

In 1901, he returned to England, where he began a notable sequence of successful staff and senior command postings. Promoted to Rear Admiral in 1907, he went to the Admiralty as Controller in 1908. Here he dealt with the many problems in trying to expand Britain’s capacity to produce dreadnoughts at the height of the naval race with Germany. Jellicoe was an admirer of German design and shipbuilding skills and warned repeatedly that their ships were utilising their greater beam to secure superior underwater subdivision and compartmentation, making them far harder to sink than their British counterparts. Jellicoe’s performance, both ashore and at sea, was such that the First Sea Lord, Sir Jackie Fisher, and the First Lord of the Admiralty, Winston Churchill, were both persuaded that Jellicoe was the ‘new Nelson’ who should lead the Royal

Navy to victory over Germany. So it was that on the outbreak of war on 4 August 1914, Jellicoe was immediately appointed as Commander in Chief of the Grand Fleet. The Grand Fleet was a formidable force - the concentrated essence of British naval power. Yet the sheer expense and complexity of Twentieth Century technology had demanded that all Britain’s eggs were placed in just a few baskets. An awareness of this vulnerability was at the heart of Jellicoe’s assessment of the naval situation. It is interesting to compare this situation with that existing a century earlier. In September, 1805, the month before Trafalgar in addition to Nelson's force of 26 capital ships and 19 frigates, the Navy had, therefore, in commission in home waters and the Mediterranean a yet more numerous force of 47 capital ships and 50 frigates. A consideration of these figures will

REPUTATIONS show that the situation at these two periods was very different, in that, in 1805, the force engaged at Trafalgar was only a relatively small portion of the available British Fleet.

UNDER ‘HOUSE ARREST’

One of Jellicoe’s immediate tasks was to wean the Royal Navy from its historic diet of close blockade. The emergence of the submarine, the prevalence of mines and the ever-increasing threat posed by fast destroyers made close blockade impossible. The Admiralty and Jellicoe were well aware of this and sought to introduce a distant blockade encouraged by the circumstances of geography. The British Isles themselves effectively blockaded off the Germans, laying as they did,

LEFT: The 1st Earl Beatty (17 January 1871 – 11 March 1936), of Jutland fame, whilst a Vice Admiral.

four-square across the sea routes to Germany. Only two gaps remained. The English Channel to the south was only around 20 miles across at the Straits of Dover, and easily blocked. To the north, the 200 miles between Scotland and Norway would be patrolled by a force of cruisers backed up by the Grand Fleet at its new base of the vast anchorage of Scapa Flow in the Orkneys. This policy ceded absolute ‘control’ of the North Sea, which remained open to both sides, but it secured for Great Britain almost all the benefits of control of the wider oceans across the globe. Under this blockade, the German fleet was effectively under ‘house arrest’ and the impasse could not be broken unless they successfully assaulted their ‘jailor’ in a major fleet

BELOW LEFT: Prince Heinrich of Prussia and Admiral Reinhard Scheer, the Commanderin-Chief of the German High Seas Fleet, at Jutland.

action. Thus, Jellicoe was resolved to be cautious. "It is quite within the bounds of possibility that half our battle fleet might be disabled by under-water attack before the guns opened fire at all, if a false move is made, and I feel that I must constantly bear in mind the great probability of such attack and be prepared tactically to prevent its success."

BELOW: The fourth of her class, HMS Royal Oak was laid down at Devonport Dockyard in January 1914. Completed in 1916, Royal Oak first saw action at the Battle of Jutland.

MANIFEST COMPETENCE

Having defined the parameters within which he would act, Jellicoe began an intensive programme of exercises designed to bring the Grand Fleet to a peak of efficiency. If manoeuvring, station keeping, signalling, gunnery »

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REPUTATIONS

ABOVE: German U-Boat. The strategic failure at Jutland left unrestricted submarine warfare as the only option for the German navy. BELOW: The German battlecruiser Seydlitz burns in the Battle of Jutland, 31 May 1916.

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and damage control were the language of naval warfare, then Jellicoe was determined that his men would be fluent in all of them. If the Grand Fleet ever had any doubts about their new leader, they were soon washed away by a combination of his manifest competence and capacity for hard work. One of the staff aboard his flagship, the Iron Duke, was Lieutenant Commander Roger Bellairs, who was greatly impressed. Jellicoe worked with an amazing rapidity. To see him there reading despatches and memorandum, making pencil annotations and corrections, interrupted from time to time by the mass of matters and signals requiring

immediate action, was to see a man who through years of training and control had brought the power of concentration to a fine art. Physical fitness was combined with this power of concentration. Never did the writer see him out of temper or anything but cheerful, and infusing everyone with the joy of carrying out the work in hand. His calm outlook never deserted him. Care and responsibilities were when possible thrown off the last thing at night by the reading of thrillers of a particularly lurid description. This last intriguing detail does more than anything else to bring Jellicoe to life.

LURKING SUBMARINES

For two years the two great fleets waited, but little happened beyond skirmishes between the battlecruisers. Then, in 1916, Admiral Reinhard Scheer took command of the High Seas Fleet. The overall policy did not change, but Scheer was determined to exert systematic pressure across the whole gamut of naval warfare, including attempts to ambush the Grand Fleet by drawing them across minefields or lurking submarines, tip and run raids on East Coast ports, and attacks on the British convoys to Scandinavia. The intention was to seize upon the confusion of action to attain a temporary local superiority to erode the ever-increasing British superiority in brute numbers. The result was the Battle of Jutland in the North Sea on 31 May 1916. The total forces at Scheer’s disposal were 16 dreadnoughts, 8 pre-dreadnoughts, 5 battlecruisers, 11 light cruisers and 61 destroyers, whilst Jellicoe had 28 dreadnoughts, 9 battlecruisers, 8 cruisers, 26 light cruisers and 73 destroyers. Thus the numerical advantage was very much with the Royal Navy. Yet there were sub-plots that rendered the situation more complex. When Nelson sailed into battle, ships like the Victory were known quantities and his men had been drilled to fire broadside at a far faster rate than the French and Spanish crews. One British ship was worth two,

REPUTATIONS or even three it was reckoned, of their opponents. Yet Jellicoe’s ships were deeply flawed creations.

A DISAPPOINTING BATTLE

The battlecruisers had inadequate armour and the dreadnoughts had not got the underwater subdivision and resilience that he knew the Germans possessed. The British range finding equipment and shells were also unreliable. In both defence and offense, the British were found wanting. It was also evident that the British sailor was not superior in either seamanship or gunnery to the superbly trained German matelots. Nor were the British admirals a ‘band of brothers’ after the Nelsonic tradition of strong independent officers capable of taking their own decisions in a common cause. Jellicoe had to work with a weak generation of officers who, although brought up to pay lip service to attacking ideals, were in fact imbued with caution and a choking deference to the senior officer. The Grand Fleet was too big to control, as no one man could see what was going on with formations that stretched for miles. As a result, the Grand Fleet went into action governed by Battle Orders created by Jellicoe in an effort to imagine every possible eventuality in action - and then provide the answer - which was then practised in exhaustive drills. Individuality was frowned upon, as independent action offered minimal rewards, but increased the risk of a squadron of being cut off from the main body and defeated in detail – just as the Germans intended.

In the event, Jutland was a disappointing battle for all sides. A huge sprawling affair, this is not the place for a detailed analysis. (See Jutland: 1916 by Peter Hart & Nigel Steel) Many draw the lesson from the battle that what was needed was bolder independent action from Jellicoe’s subordinates. Yet disasters occurred when admirals acted rashly. In the early stages, Beatty dashed off into action against the German battlecruisers without waiting to concentrate his forces to secure the support of the

mighty 15” super-dreadnoughts of the Fifth Battle Squadron. The result was two British battlecruisers, HMS Indefatigable and Queen Mary, being blown up as speed proved no substitute for their inadequate armour.

IRON NERVE

For Jellicoe there was one defining moment when he displayed all his calm leadership and rational thinking. When the Grand Fleet was required to deploy from six columns into a single line, he considered all the »

ABOVE: The Imperial German Navy's battleship SMS SchleswigHolstein fires a salvo during the Battle of Jutland on 31 May 1916. BELOW: The dreadnoughts of the Grand Fleet cruising in the North Sea.

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REPUTATIONS

ABOVE: HMS Lion Leading the Battle Cruisers at the Battle of Jutland. By William Lionel Wyllie. BELOW: HMS Defence and HMS Warrior in Action at the Battle of Jutland, 31 May 1916 – 1 June 1916. By William Lionel Wyllie. BOTTOM (OPPOSITE: HMS Royal Oak, HMS Acasta, HMS Benbow, HMS Superb and HMS Canada in Action at Jutland. By William Lionel Wyllie.

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options. Captain Frederic Dreyer captured the moment when this slight self-effacing man made the decision that could have changed the course of history. "I then heard at once the sharp, distinctive step of the Commander-inChief, he had steel strips on his heels. He stepped quickly onto the platform round the compasses and looked in silence at the magnetic compass card for about 20 seconds. I watched his keen, brown, weather-beaten face with tremendous interest, wondering what he would do. With iron nerve he had pressed on through the mist with his 24 huge ships, each weighing some 25,000 tons or more, until the last possible moment, so as to get into effective range and make the best tactical manoeuvre after obtaining news of the position of the enemy Battle Fleet, which was his objective. I realised as I watched him that he was as cool and unmoved as ever. Then he looked up and broke the silence with the order in his crisp, clear-cut voice." Jellicoe decided to form up on the port

column. The starboard option would have exposed his ships to grave risks. My first and natural impulse was to form on the starboard wing column in order to bring the Fleet into action at the earliest possible moment, but it became increasingly apparent, both from the sound of gunfire and the reports from the Lion and Barham, that the High Sea Fleet was in such close proximity and on such a bearing as to create obvious disadvantages in such a movement. I assumed that the German destroyers would be ahead of their Battle Fleet, and it was clear that, owing to the mist, the operations of destroyers attacking from a commanding position in the van would be much facilitated; it would be suicidal to place the Battle Fleet in a position where it might be open to attack by destroyers during such a deployment.

DIFFICULT TO SINK

His deployment on the port column put him in a position where he was ‘crossing the T’ of the High Seas Fleet, with the advantage of better visibility

for his gunners and offering the chance to get between the Germans and their home ports. Subsequent criticism has been based only on vague generalisations born of optimistic thinking – a fatal combination in war. Later, when Jellicoe’s dreadnoughts were threatened by torpedoes launched by a German destroyer attack, he turned away from the threat - rather than towards it - as some have since recommended. Yet he had made his policy clear right from the start – he would not run the risk of serious losses from torpedo attacks and mines. The Grand Fleet was just too important to risk. Even so, he secured a series of excellent tactical positions and inflicted severe damage to numerous German ships. However, just as he had warned in the pre-war years, the German ships were difficult to sink. The final phase of the battle was a night action, something which exposed the weaknesses of the Grand Fleet. Time after time Jellicoe’s officers sought certainty before committing to the attack when

THE RELUCTANT HERO

REPUTA LewisTIONS Pugh Evans VC sighting German ships - with the result that the Germans escaped almost unscathed back to port. Dawn brought a terrible disappointment to Jellicoe and the Grand Fleet as they gazed on an empty sea. The battle was over. But who had won?

CRUSHING STRATEGIC SUCCESS

The Germans had sunk three battlecruisers, three armoured cruisers and eight destroyers for the loss of one battlecruiser, one predreadnought, four light cruisers and five destroyers. Some 6,094 British sailors lost their lives compared to 2,252 Germans. Yet the temporary tactical and material successes of the Germans fade into insignificance beside the crushing strategic success of the British. The great question of the naval war had been answered. Scheer’s intention at Jutland had been to isolate a small portion of the British fleet and, by destroying it, allow a fleet action between relative equals to quickly follow. They had failed. The British losses were painful, but quickly replaced. There is no room for sentiment in war, the most brutal of sciences. Jellicoe had no need to destroy the German fleet to attain his basic strategic aims. On 28 November 1916, Jellicoe was called ashore to take up the equally onerous duties of First Sea Lord. Jellicoe’s period at the Admiralty was mired in controversy over the problem posed by unrestricted submarine warfare – the German answer to their strategic impotence after Jutland. Ever-methodical, Jellicoe established an Anti-Submarine Division at the Admiralty to examine and coordinate the response to the threat. Unfortunately, that was as far as his inspiration took him. Jellicoe had always been a ‘detail’

man, overcoming the problem of inadequate subordinates by a high degree of centralisation. He had coped well enough at the Grand Fleet, but at the Admiralty a combination of underlying health problems, exhaustion and stress all seem to have prevented him from discerning with sufficient speed what – with hindsight – was the obvious solution.

THE U-BOAT PROBLEM

Although Jellicoe was correct in his belief that there was no single answer to the U-Boat problem; at the same time, it should have been evident that a very important component of any solution should have been the introduction of a convoy system as employed by Britain in times of war since time immemorial. Traditionally, vulnerable merchantmen were gathered together into convoy with an armed escort to protect them from the attentions of commerce raiders. If introduced then the seas would be cleared of helpless victims and even if a submarine located a convoy, it

would be exposing itself to attack from the escort. But Jellicoe could see only problems. He blanched at the sheer complexity of the administrative arrangements required to organise thousands of ships into convoys and pointed to the shortage of suitable escort vessels. He feared the carnage should they run into a minefield, and fretted over the practical problems of maintaining convoy speed or coordinating the zigzagging courses of ships of vastly different capabilities. Underneath it all there was the lurking fear that a convoy would merely gather together potential victims for an orgy of destruction should the U-Boats get amongst them. The pressure for convoys continued to grow and received further impetus when experiments dramatically reduced losses. The US declaration of war in April 1917 had also eased slightly the shortage of naval escorts. Still, the introduction of a fully-fledged convoy system was very slow and the shipping losses remained high throughout the »

LEFT: Taken from the deck of HMS Inflexible, the next ship astern, this picture shows the massive plume of smoke caused when HMS Invincible exploded during the Battle of Jutland after she was hit five times by shells from the German battlecruisers Derfflinger and Lützow. The last hit blew the roof off ‘Q’ Turret and set fire to the cordite propellant. The flash soon spread to the magazine and Invincible was ripped in two by the explosion. She sank with the loss of all but six of her crew of 1,021 (though the number of survivors varies from account to account). One of the survivors, Gunnery Officer Hubert Dannreuther, was the godson of the composer Richard Wagner. Rear Admiral Hood was among the dead.

 

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REPUTATIONS RIGHT: Damage to SMS Derfflinger pictured after the Battle of Jutland. During the course of the engagement, Derfflinger was hit seventeen times by heavy calibre shells and nine times by secondary guns. Derfflinger fired 385 shells from her main battery, another 235 rounds from her secondary guns, and one torpedo.

summer of 1917. Jellicoe was still swamped by real or imagined practical difficulties of the convoy system and, in consequence, there was no drive in the implementation of the policy. A dull pessimism had begun to colour his whole outlook on the war. Gradually, the rate at which Allied shipping was being sunk began to fall in a direct proportion to the number of ships travelling in convoy; at the same time the numbers of U-Boats sunk began to rise. Almost despite itself, the Admiralty had stumbled across the solution to the submarine crisis. Nevertheless, it was all too late for Jellicoe. Exhausted by his efforts he was ignominiously dismissed on 24 December 1917. His war was over.

BELOW: Pictured here during the 1920s, the British memorial is on the left; the German one nearest the camera. Frederikshavn is a port in northern Jutland. Buried here are four First World War casualties, all naval ratings killed in the Battle of Jutland.

Freed from his onerous responsibilities he regained much of his intellectual vigour in the post-war years and was able to give a clear exposition of his actions in command of the Grand Fleet at Jutland, arousing much admiration by his dignified refusal not to respond in kind to scabrous attacks on his conduct of the battle emanating from allies of his erstwhile subordinate, Beatty. Jellicoe also wrote prescient reports warning of the dangers posed by the increasing naval strength of Japan and went on to prove himself a popular Governor General of New Zealand. He died on 20 November 1935 and is buried at St Paul’s Cathedral.

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ATTACKS ON HIS CONDUCT

When not dragged down by exhaustion, Jellicoe was a technocrat who had a mind like a slide rule - thought processes that travelled smoothly along the grooves of cold logic. As Commander in Chief he could not and would not risk the Grand Fleet, and the future of his country, on the lottery of being able to successfully evade mines or a mass destroyer torpedo attack. Overall, he surely deserves his place as a ‘Great British Admiral’ alongside the likes of St Vincent and Rodney perhaps. Perhaps Jellicoe’s reputation suffered most of all because of what he was not; and what he was not was Nelson. Yet Nelson was a unique creation of the opportunities provided by British naval superiority.

The culmination of centuries of naval warfare in tried and tested machines of war meant that Nelson could ‘play the game’ with all the dice loaded in his favour; reliable ships, brilliant subordinates, superbly trained men, a weak enemy, and all of this underpinned by the knowledge that even if he lost a battle it would not have been the end for the Royal Navy or the British Empire. Jellicoe, meanwhile, was in possession of substandard ships, with weak subordinates, faced a superbly trained and equipped enemy, and was keenly aware that he was the one man who could lose the war in an afternoon. Jellicoe did the best he could, and, in the author’s view, the very best that was feasible on that murky late-afternoon and evening of 31 May 1916.

The Western Front F_P.indd 1

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a D s ’ e n i t n e l a V t n e m e g a g n E VALENTINE’S DAY ENGAGEMENT Typhoons in ‘Battle of The MTB’ – 1943

When a pair of Motor Torpedo Boats ran into difficulties off the French coast on St.Valentine’s Day, 1943, Typhoons of the RAF’s 609 Squadron were sent out to provide air cover. Mark Crame relates the tragic tale which subsequently unfolded.

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y a D t

VALENTINE’S DAY ENGAGEMENT Typhoons in ‘Battle of The MTB’ – 1943

I

T WAS ‘A’ Flight's turn at readiness on 14 February 1943 when Red Section of 609 (West Riding) Squadron, Sgt John Wiseman and Flt Sgt Alan Haddon, took off in perfect flying weather from RAF Manston tasked with protecting Royal Navy Motor Torpedo Boats in difficulties near the French coast. With dawn breaking, and still in range of German coastal artillery, attempts were made to tow one of the MTBs to safety as the men on board were at the mercy of the artillery and also the Luftwaffe, who would surely soon appear. The squadron’s Form 540 Operations Records Book opens the story: 

BELOW: Typhoon pilots of 609 Squadron, 1943, with Sqn Ldr ‘Bee’ Beamont standing in the doorway.

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VALENTINE’S DAY ENGAGEMENT Typhoons in ‘Battle of The MTB’ – 1943

on the farm with his own family, his grandfather being the foreman there. Charley also enlisted in the RAF once he came of age, but as a mechanic rather than aircrew. John's patience was rewarded when, on 28 June 1941, he was instructed to report to No.1 Receiving Centre at Babbacombe for basic instruction before heading to No.4 Initial Training Wing, Paignton, and then onwards, as Leading Aircraftsman Wiseman, to No.31 Elementary Flying Training School at De Winton, Calgary, Canada, where he arrived just over a month later on 17 September. His first flight followed ten days afterwards, in a Tiger Moth. Meanwhile, his companion on that fateful Valentine’s Day, Flt Sgt Alan Haddon, was nicknamed 'Babe' due to appearing more like a fifteen-yearold but was three years John's senior. ABOVE: ‘Wing Commander de Goat’ the 609 Squadron mascot. RIGHT: ‘Wing Commander de Goat’ and ‘Blitz’ the dog alongside a squadron Typhoon. BELOW: John Wiseman pictured with a Harvard during his period of flying training in Canada.

"For the IO to go away on a Sunday is as effective as the CO saluting W/C de Goat. Today it results in the 'Battle of the MTB', a success comparable to the classic 'Battle of the Dinghy' on 8/5/41. Though F/Sgt Haddon and Sgt Wiseman are lost, 4 other Typhoons between them score no less than 7 Fw190's destroyed or probably destroyed. Initial situation: an MTB disabled between Dover and Gris Nez after striking hidden wreckage. First to be airborne, at 1030, are Haddon and Wiseman" (NB: W/C de Goat was the squadron’s goat mascot) Sadly, the two young pilots would not return.

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TWO FIGHTER BOYS

Born on 31 January 1923, Sgt John Wiseman was the only son of Percy and Hilda, growing up at Grange Farm, Martham, Norfolk, with his elder sister, Betty, who would also end up in uniform as an ATS driver attached to the Royal Norfolk Regiment. John was remembered as a popular, kind and intelligent boy, a former prefect at Great Yarmouth Grammar School. Always keen on aviation, and hoping to become an airline pilot after the war, John worked on the family farm while waiting until old enough to enlist in the RAF, first joining the Home Guard with his childhood friend, Charley Gallant, who lived

VALENTINE’S DAY ENGAGEMENT Typhoons in ‘Battle of The MTB’ – 1943

LEFT: 609 Squadron Typhoon.

his physique, finally enlisting on 14 September 1940 reporting to No.2 Receiving Centre before commencing flying training in June 1941 at 15 Flying Training School, RAF Lossiemouth.

PARACHUTE AND CLOTHING ON FIRE

Born on 18 August 1920 in County Durham, Alan was brought up by his father, Joseph, a First World War veteran of the Highland Light Infantry who lost his wife and mother of Alan and younger brother Ron while they were still children. Alan had a difficult early life, but was well-liked by his peer group and had an eye for the girls, with whom he proved popular. A keen sportsman, excelling at cricket and bowls, he also did well at school before leaving at the age of fifteen to move to Leicester, attending college learning technical drawing and starting work as a trainee draughtsman. With the outbreak of war, Alan decided to join the RAF as aircrew but was rejected due to: 'insufficient expansion of the chest'. Refusing to be denied his wish he purchased a Charles Atlas bodybuilding course and improved

Haddon, the more experienced of the two fighter boys, had joined 609 Sqn six months later in December 1941 while the squadron were still equipped with Spitfires. A popular pilot, he had already been credited with one Fw190 destroyed, the first for the squadron since their conversion to Typhoons during the summer of 1942, and a further two probables in December, despite having told his CO, Squadron Leader Paul Richey, that he has "no intention of flying a big bastard like that!" The aerial victory with which

he is credited came on 15 December 1942 when he and Plt Off Henry Amor attacked three Fw190s. Amor hit one, but his aircraft was set alight and he baled-out although was never found. Haddon's combat report paints a vivid picture of the dangers faced on these standing patrols: 

BELOW: Alan Haddon during his period of flying training. BOTTOM LEFT: John Wiseman (left) and Charley Gallant during their Home Guard service.

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VALENTINE’S DAY ENGAGEMENT Typhoons in ‘Battle of The MTB’ – 1943 BELOW: 'Wing Commander de Goat', the 609 Squadron mascot, pictured with one of the unit's pilots.

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"I followed the port enemy aircraft through cloud and on breaking cloud saw the Fw190 and gave three short bursts allowing three rings deflection at 150-200 yards range. On second burst a cloud of grey and white smoke and then black smoke came from enemy aircraft. Then I saw four Fw190's behind me firing a considerable amount of tracer, so I did a steep diving turn into cloud. On breaking through cloud I saw a pilot with parachute and clothing on fire plummet into the water. However, as there were still three Fw190's on my tail I had to go back into cloud as quickly as possible."

VALENTINE’S DAY ENGAGEMENT Typhoons in ‘Battle of The MTB’ – 1943

FIRST OPERATIONAL FLIGHT

Sergeant Wiseman had yet to open his scoring account, his posting to 609 Sqn being in August 1942 and his first flight with the squadron also being his first in a Typhoon, although it took until 16 October before he made his first operational flight with a 1 hour 40 minute patrol from North to South Foreland. Those that followed consisted almost entirely of standing patrols along the Kent coast, with one aborted ‘Rhubarb’ and a couple of ‘Scrambles’. On three occasions he spotted 'Jerry', the first on 23 January when he recorded: "Two Fw190s sighted at Dungeness but dived away into cloud". None of these occasions provided the chance of interception, the closest occurring whilst flying as No.2 to Flt Lt 'Joe' Atkinson, and being all the more galling when friendly anti-aircraft fire obscured the raiders. Things were heating up on the southeast coast, however, and only the previous day, while Johnny and ‘Babe’ were flying together, the Intelligence Officer, Frank Ziegler, writes in the Form 540 Operations Record Book: "F/Sgt Haddon and Sgt Wiseman are about to land after another patrol when they are told of a bandit approaching Dover. Turning back, Haddon sees a Fw190, silhouetted by the sun, turning at 14,000 feet. Section climbs after E/A through thin cloud at 11,000 feet, and have reached 15,000 feet when 2 E/A are seen diving for France."

INTO THE SEA IN FLAMES

And so, on the morning of 14 February 1943 and what was John's seventeenth flight of the month, the two young pilots are tasked with the job of close escort for one of the crippled MTBs

being towed by two more. The pair, with oxygen masks over their mouths and rudders trimmed to port to counter the torque from the massive three-bladed propeller, with the fuel mixture set to rich and the fuel cocks and radiator opened and fifteen degrees of flap set, prime the carburettors and switch on their ignitions. With the cylinders primed they push down on the coil boosters and starter buttons and each fire a Coffmann cartridge to turn over the twenty-two hundred horses locked away inside the Napier Sabre engine ahead of them. They taxi out, opening the throttle in response to the green light from control and surge forwards down the runway; Haddon takes the lead, lifting off at 10:30 in DN294 PR-O with Wiseman following in R7872 PR-S and the pair head out to sea. Then bad luck strikes the Navy; the cable that is being used to tow the stricken vessel breaks. With the boats now stationary, thankfully

out of the range of the German guns, Wiseman and Haddon can do no more than circle relentlessly around them at 500ft, a thousand yards apart in line astern. It is around this time that contact is lost between Red Section and Bill Igoe, the Sector Controller at RAF Biggin Hill, codenamed ‘Swingate', who has been visited only a few weeks before, on 8 January, by the pair and newly-promoted Belgian Flying Officer Lallemand with a view to greater mutual efficiency in controlling and being controlled; the day before Lallemand 'investigated' Wiseman's Typhoon, causing the latter to exclaim hurriedly: "Cheval, it's me! It's Wiseman!" 

TOP LEFT: Ground crew of 609 Squadron watch as one of the squadron Typhoons makes a low pass. TOP RIGHT: Flt Sgt Alan Haddon, 609 Squadron.

ABOVE: John Wiseman pictured with his sister Betty, an ATS driver. LEFT: Roy Payne with his Typhoon ‘Micky’ (PR-H) named after his wifeto-be. www.britainatwar.com 33

VALENTINE’S DAY ENGAGEMENT Typhoons in ‘Battle of The MTB’ – 1943

ABOVE: Cheval Lallemand is congratulated on the award of DFC, March 1943. ABOVE RIGHT: Armourer ‘Spud’ Murphy of 609 Squadron with belted 20mm ammunition. BELOW: 609 Squadron Typhoon, DN329.

Shortly before contact is lost, at Vannes-Meucon across the Channel in France, a pair of Focke Wulf Fw190-A4’s of III./Jg2 ‘Richtofen’ take off. The Squadron Commander, Oberleutnant Egon Mayer and his wingman Leutnant Fritz Rösle fly low over the Channel and head for the MTB's. Sighting the Typhoons they pull up: Luftwaffe claim records put the times at 11:36 and 11:38 and Flying Officer Lallemand is to write later in 'Rendezvous with Fate': "Some weeks later in a Ramsgate bar I heard the sad story from an eyewitness: the captain of the damaged MTB. He said that soon after the Typhoons started circling the boats in Indian file, the sailors saw two Focke Wulf 190’s loom up at sea level. Unable to warn our friends they watched one of them shoot down both Typhoons in

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quick succession – one folding up like a book, the other plunging into the sea in flames, without either knowing what hit them"

HITS ON THE COCKPIT

Fg Off Lallemand is also in the air that morning; sent to patrol mid-Channel in Typhoon R7855 PR-D, with Fg Off Antoni Polek in R8899 as his No.2. They had taken off as Yellow Section to continue the escort, but soon ran into trouble, engaging the first of two flights of four German fighters. The Intelligence Form 'F' Combat Report records: "F/O Lallemand (Belgian) and F/O Polek (Polish) left Manston at 11:29 on defensive patrol and were then vectored to the position of the MTB. Flying at 300ft they sighted 4 Fw190’s in square formation, on the deck and heading

West. The Typhoons attacked and the 190’s split up; there was a dogfight. On his first burst from astern Lallemand saw no result. After various gyrations he saw Polek chasing a 190 with another 190 behind him and firing. Lallemand approached from the beam and fired at the 190 behind Polek, obtaining hits on the cockpit. Lallemand almost rammed the enemy aircraft which crashed into the sea. Polek meantime had fired at a 190 while it was turning and diving, and then gave it a long burst as it climbed. The 190 poured thick white smoke and made cloud at such a low rate that Polek, following, was at stalling point. Polek believes the pilot was dead as he made no attempt to evade or avoid stalling."

VALENTINE’S DAY ENGAGEMENT Typhoons in ‘Battle of The MTB’ – 1943

Lallemand takes up the story: "Ten minutes go by and it is time control relieved us. One more round trip, Boulogne – Calais – Boulogne, and surely they will. We are just making our final turn off Boulogne when I hear a distinct but very feeble voice uttering my call-sign: “Beauty Yellow leader, bandits approaching you from east.” It is Bill Igoe again. I scan the coast two miles away, wondering whether perhaps our turn has confused him and made him plot us as hostiles, but dutifully resume the turn to put us in a better tactical position. It is just as well, for at once I see four Focke Wulf 190’s to port, brushing the cliffs and dashing towards us. They have the yellow noses of the famous Richtofen group. Throttling back, I cry “Tally-Ho!” to warn Polek and the controller and as my speed drops I turn more tightly, adjusting the

propeller to fine pitch. Then, pushing the selector till I have ten degrees of flap, I give full gas and bank to the maximum. My mind darts back to the previous combat and how the German fighters broke up, and into the microphone I shout “SCRAMBLE!” They will be listening at dispersal and I know that Jean de Selys and Roy Payne will take off at once. In fact, as the twisting dog-fight continues and we gain on the 190’s, I already hear Jean’s airborne voice calling me. Will the 190’s separate and increase our disadvantage? It is not easy for two pilots to keep an eye on four enemies. I call Jean back, first in English, then desperately in French: “Jean, à Gris-Nez, nom de Dieu!” The Form 540 continues: "With the leading pair turning on a parallel course to port, Lallemand fired at one of the second pair from 15 degrees and it turned on its back. Whilst it was inverted he fired again from above, seeing strikes on its

belly. As he overshot the enemy aircraft was still inverted, travelling at great speed in a dive from 300ft. He believes it went straight into the sea. Lallemand then fired a full beam shot at the second enemy aircraft of the pair from 350-400 yards. Enemy aircraft dived and to his surprise burst into flames – Polek saw it go in. Polek himself got on the tail of another enemy aircraft (presumably one of the leading pair). This made a sharp climbing turn and Polek fired from the quarter at 100 yards range shortly before the enemy aircraft reached cloud and he had to break away as the fourth enemy aircraft was on his tail. Though he saw no results of his fire, Lallemand saw this enemy aircraft flying slowly along the coast below cliff level, losing height and pouring blue-black smoke." ‘Just a Minor Skirmish’ With Lallemand and Polek heading back to Manston after two combats with JG2, the day was far from over, with Fg Off Roy Payne's logbook noting: 

ABOVE: Typhoon R7752 of 609 Squadron. LEFT: Alan Haddon, second left, at RAF Biggin Hill. BELOW: Sqn Ldr Roland Beamont by 609 Squadron’s state board.

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VALENTINE’S DAY ENGAGEMENT Typhoons in ‘Battle of The MTB’ – 1943

saw emerging from the cloud, as he had corkscrewed away.”

TWO AGAINST FOUR

TOP RIGHT: Mention in Dispatches Certificate for Alan Haddon. TOP: Typhoon R7752 of 609 Squadron. ABOVE: Telegram notifying the loss of Alan Haddon.

"PR-H. Escorting MT Boats. 50mins duration. 1 Fw190 destroyed over Calais" Speaking many years after the event, Roy recalled what he regarded as a minor skirmish. Airborne in R7845 PR-H as No.2 to another Belgian, Fg Off Jean de Selys Longchamps, in R8888, PR-Y, they scrambled when called by Lallemand and took around ten minutes to reach the MTBs mid-Channel at around 300 mph, flying "just high enough above the waves to get the wheels up!" “Just as we flew overhead the MTB’s, we couldn’t believe our luck; just about two miles ahead we spotted a very old Junkers 52 three-engined transport plane heading North, just inside the French coastline. We headed towards it, but fantastic flak came up at us from the coastal defences. As we were concentrating so hard on the Ju52 we made the classic mistake; we stopped

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scanning the sky for enemy aircraft. In those few seconds, I saw tracer flash over my wings from behind. We both broke away suddenly. I turned steeply then saw the Fw190s go up into cloud. I followed them in, and on re-emerging saw two planes. I thought the one in front of the other was Jean, so I called out to him on the radio. Then I opened fire on the closest of the two and saw my shells rip into his wing and lots of white smoke emerge from the fuselage. I thought I couldn’t claim it as destroyed because I hadn’t seen it hit the water, however on returning to Manston the Intelligence boys gave it to me. I think they wanted to keep the numbers up. Afterwards, de Selys and I wondered whether the Ju52 was there as a decoy, but quickly realised that logistically it would have been impossible. It turned out that Jean’s was not one of the pair of aircraft that I

Meanwhile, in the home county of the West Riding Squadron the following article appeared in the Yorkshire Evening News: TYPHOONS ROUT NEWEST NAZI FIGHTERS. F.W.s Routed While Attacking Launches The battles of the F.W.s began when six pilots from the West Riding of Yorkshire Auxiliary Squadron, flying over the Channel in their Typhoons, saw a couple of high-speed launches being attacked by five or six enemy planes. The Typhoons promptly went in to attack. A Belgian pilot was leading a section when, in his own words: “We met four F.W.190’s. They did not see us until we fired. They split up immediately and after a dogfight for four or five minutes I saw my No. 2 shooting at one F.W.190 and being chased by another. “I turned to help him and hit the Hun, who went straight into the water. I climbed again, found my No. 2 and resumed patrol, as there were on other enemy aircraft in sight.

A SECOND CLASH

“After fifteen minutes we saw another formation of four F.W. 190s making for Gris Nez, so we started climbing and got on their tails. I saw my fire hit one, but did not see what happened to him after he had turned on his back because I overshot him. I made a steep turn and got in some good bursts on another F.W. 190, which went down in flames.” The Belgian pilots pilot’s No. 2 was a Polish flying officer, who severely damaged other F.W.s

VALENTINE’S DAY ENGAGEMENT Typhoons in ‘Battle of The MTB’ – 1943 had written the final entry in the pages of his 1942 diary: "Jan 1st. And so ends an eventful year and I am on the threshold of another which has promise of lots more fun and excitement and maybe even a little glory if God wishes it to be so." The BBC's Nine O’ Clock News that night announced: “In the course of defensive patrols over the English Channel, Typhoons of Fighter Command destroyed five Focke-Wulf 190s, the latest type of German fighter. Two of our pilots failed to return.” No trace of either Wiseman or Haddon was ever found, their names recorded on the CWGC Runnymede Memorial to RAF personnel lost in NW Europe and who have no known grave. 

“I could not wait to see if they crashed, because we were two against four,” he said “I got in a long burst against the first F.W. 190. He was climbing and turning very steeply all the time, but I saw a number of strikes and smoke. The Hun disappeared in cloud. “In the second dog-fight we were again two against four. I got in a burst before my target disappeared again in cloud. When I turned I saw him going down with smoke pouring out, making for the French coast.” Another Belgian, also a flying officer, shot down his first enemy aircraft. The fourth F.W. 190 destroyed was shot down by a Scottish-born flying officer."

LEFT: Alan Haddon’s last diary entries. BELOW: Royal message of condolence on loss of Alan Haddon. BOTTOM: Typhoons of 609 Squadron taxy out for another sortie. BOTTOM LEFT: The pilot wings of John Wiseman.

TWO OF OUR PILOTS FAILED TO RETURN

Luftwaffe records show JagdGeschwader 2 ‘Richtofen’ losing three Fw190s and the deaths of Unteroffizier Fridolin Armbruster, Leutnant Leonhard Deuerling and Unteroffizier Gerhard Bischoff. 609's score on Typhoons is now 17 Destroyed, 6 Probable and 7 Damaged, for the loss through enemy action of 5 pilots. Their total for the war is now 180 Destroyed, 64 Probable and 94 Damaged for the loss of 36 pilots. It is a year and one day since John Wiseman, with 391 hours flying recorded in his logbook, had been awarded his coveted wings and only six weeks since Alan Haddon, fifteen months a fighter pilot with 609 Sqn,

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FIELD POST

Our Letter of the Month is sponsored by Pen & Sword Books

'Britain at War' Magazine, PO Box 380, Hastings, East Sussex, TN34 9JA | [email protected]

LETTER OF THE MONTH

Grandfather ̕s Untold War Story

Dear Sir - In your August 2015 feature First World War Diary August 1915 you mention that a Special Service, or Q-Ship, HMS Baralong destroyed German submarine U-27 in the Atlantic on 19 August. This was not the only U-boat despatched by this accomplished - and controversial - Special Service vessel.  On 23 September 1915, Baralong, having been renamed HMS Wyandra in the intervening 4 weeks, encountered Claus Hansen’s U-41 67 miles SW by W from Bishop’s Rock. Hansen had just intercepted the Wilson Line’s SS Urbino as she was returning to Hull from New York. Urbino’s crew had been forced to take to the boats, jeered by the U-boat crew who shelled the ship in low trajectory and just above their heads. Within minutes, U-41 was itself sent to the bottom - by the Wyandra. The story is partly related in Admiralty Record 137/385, the cover folio of which bears a then SECRET manuscript note from the Senior RN Officer Falmouth to the effect that although the Urbino’s Master had vouchsafed that “his men would keep their mouths shut,” the former did not think they would. He did not elaborate why. They did, however!

A couple of days later, many of Urbino’s crew had returned to their homes.  This included her former Master, Allanson Hick, who’s first task was to report to the Company’s offices in Hull and her 3rd Engineer, Jim Suggit - my grandfather. Jim Suggit had been at sea on the Wilson Line’s SS Eskimo in 1914. Having been a TA bombardier before 1914, he had joined the RNR as an engineer lieutenant. He was wounded at least once and grandmother said he had seen some terrible things. She cited a particular instance of how he had seen a dead German submariner floating in the water with an eye shot out. Grandfather never expanded on the circumstances, but gave grandmother a small piece of coal - to act as a cue for his “I’ll tell you the story when the war is over.” She never heard it, neither did my father. Grandfather was lost on 16 September 1917 when MV Arabis (also styled HMT Arabis) was sunk without warning by Kurt Heeseler’s U-54. The story was almost certainly Baralong/Wyandra - Urbino - U-41 associated. The Admiralty Record unfolds of how Wyandra sank U-41 with only two survivors, one being the gunnery officer (Iwan Crompton) who had had his eye

shot out and who, according to his later book about the event, had feigned being dead whilst in the water. The two Germans were later brought aboard Wyandra, receiving what can only best be described as cold shoulder treatment. Iwan Crompton was repatriated in due course, but the events of the day subsequently launched German protests as the “Second Baralong Incident”, the first being after the sinking of U-27. Both losses prompted German production of propaganda outrage medals. I now presume that the small piece of coal Grandmother kept in her best china cabinet came from either Baralong‘s engine room or one of her holds. The New York Times of 14 January 1917 ran a feature on German accusations about U-41. There had already been significant coverage of the U-27’s sinking in late 1915 because a number of those present in a somewhat similar setting had been US citizens. Francs tireurs allegations against Baralong and its crew, together with claims that they had attacked whilst flying US colours, had already been made in the US press, especially those elements which then had German leanings.

It is thought by some that the first Baralong incident appreciably spoiled the considerable British diplomacy then being applied to persuade an early US entry into the conflict. Unrestricted U-boat actions, notably against US citizens on the Lusitania and Arabic, the German’s first use of poison gas, the Zeppelin raids against of British cities and the recent killing of Edith Cavell inter alia had provoked quite considerable outrage in America. The ‘What if the US had joined the War a year earlier?’ question is an interesting one. As was usual, when Merchant Marine ships were sunk, grandfather’s pay ceased that day. Within a fortnight, he was back at sea on the Wilson Line’s SS Salerno, as 2nd Engineer. Four days after joining, Salerno was lost to a mine laid by U-3 2.5miles from the Longsand lightship. Two crew were lost. I’m still trying to find out which other ships grandfather was on in 1916, when he qualified for the second and third of his three Board of Trade torpedo badges. I’m wondering if any Britain at War readers know who had the distinction of receiving the highest number of bars to the award? James Suggit, By email.

ABOVE: The SS Baralong which featured in the war story of James Suggit's grandfather.

The author of the Letter of the Month may select a book of their choice (maximum value £25) from the extensive range of titles available at www.pen-and-sword.co.uk 38 www.britainatwar.com

The author of the Letter of the Month may select a book of their choice (maximum value £25) from the extensive range of titles available at www.pen-and-sword.co.uk

FIELD POST

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Battle of Britain - WAAF Casualties

Dear Sir - I was fascinated to read the feature by Chris Goss detailing the RAF ground crew casualties during the Battle of Britain. (December 2015 Britain at War Magazine) This has been a neglected area of 1940 history, and full credit must go to your magazine, and to Chris Goss, for highlighting the stories of some of those killed on the ground during Britain’s ‘Finest Hour’. Certainly, they have been woefully overlooked and forgotten in Britain’s remembrance of the battle until now. It was certainly astonishing to discover that in the region of 312 RAF ground crew died on the ground in the UK during the official Battle of Britain period. Even more astonishing, for me, was the discovery that only three WAAFs died on the ground during the period between 10 July and 31 October 1940, all of them in different incidents and not all on airfields. In part, I’m sure my surprise was more to do with the famous scene during the film ‘Battle of Britain’ where Section

Officer Harvey (Susannah York) has to deal with the bodies of some of her WAAF girls, killed during a raid on a fighter airfield. In it, Susannah York famously fumbles to light up a cigarette and is yelled at by the Station Warrant Officer, Mr Warwick, because the gas main has been ruptured. Laid out on the ground before her is a growing row of blanket covered bodies – perhaps ten or more. Until now I suppose that I had just taken it for granted that a fair number of WAAFs were killed on the ground. On talking to several colleagues who are all knowledgeable in this field, all of them thought the same – that there must have been a good few WAAF casualties. Similarly, all were surprised at just how many RAF ground personnel died in the battle. How wrong we all were in our assumptions, particularly as regards to the total number of WAAFs who died. It just

ABOVE: Section Officer Harvey (Susannah York) surveys the growing toll of bodies of her WAAF personnel recovered after an air attack on a fighter aerodrome in a scene from the movie Battle of Britain. In fact, only three WAAFs in total were killed throughout the whole of the battle with the film giving an entirely false representation of the facts. (UNITED ARTISTS)

goes to show how perceptions can be skewed by the silver screen and how, sometimes, our understanding of ‘history’ can thereby be affected – in this case, by what was essentially a fictional representation of the Battle of Britain.

Thank you for helping to put putting right what I see as an unfortunate omission in this nation’s commemoration of events that took place during that epic summer of 1940. George M Wilson, by email, Cardiff.

Battle of Britain - No Longer Missing

Dear Sir - I was intrigued by your feature on Sgt J H M Ellis (Finding Cock Sparrow, Britain at War, January 2016) and the mention of his name on the Runnymede Memorial. I live quite close to Runnymede, and as I visit there from time to time I recently took the opportunity to check up

on his name. This, however, threw up a few problems when I researched him on the Commonwealth War Graves Commission website. In large part, this confusion was caused by the fact that he is now shown by the CWGC, correctly, to lie buried at Brookwood Military Cemetery. Thus, I concluded that I would no longer find his name at Runnymede. Imagine my surprise, however, to find that he is still named on the memorial. At first, when I found a Sgt Pilot J H M Ellis there, I figured that this surely must be a coincidence and that another man with the same name and initials were obviously commemorated. Not so. This was, indeed, a memorialisation for the very same Sgt J H M Ellis and although his name has disappeared from all online and printed registers

for Runnymede, his engraved name is still to be found on the memorial. I have now discovered that it is not the policy of the CWGC to chisel off the names of those who are no longer missing. Instead, the names will only be deleted from the memorial panels in the event that any should need eventual replacement. There was, however, a remarkable coincidence that I discovered when photographing the panel bearing the inscription for Ellis. Out of curiosity, I checked the names of other RAF sergeants on the same panel (Panel 14) and I found recorded there another sergeant pilot who was no longer missing. This man was also a Battle of Britain Hurricane pilot, Sgt E J Egan of 501 Sqn, lost on 14 September 1940. Just like Sgt John ‘Hugh’ Ellis, Sgt Eddie Egan’s

body was discovered in the 1980s, identified, and then buried at Brookwood Military Cemetery just a few feet away from the grave of Sgt Ellis. I thought that readers might be interested in this little quirk of CWGC policy and procedure, whereby the records might well show them to be no longer missing and buried in a known grave but that their names continue to be commemorated at the Runnymede Memorial. To some, it may be important or significant to know that commemoration for the RAF casualties who are no longer missing still continues at Runnymede, notwithstanding the fact that no trace of such commemoration will be found in the official record. Sarah Warren-MacMillan, By email, Eton.

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THE HOME GUARD'S ARMOURED VEHICLES Defending Britain in 1940

THE HOME GUARD’S

ARMOURED

VEHICLES

On 14 May 1940, Anthony Eden made his immortal broadcast that led to the formation of the Local Defence Volunteers, and, ultimately, the Home Guard. With time came proper rifles, ammunition, and uniforms, but initially improvisation had been the watchword – and nowhere was this more so, reveals Alexander Nicol, than in terms of transport and armoured fighting vehicles.

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THE HOME GUARD'S ARMOURED VEHICLES Defending Britain in 1940

N

ECESSITY, AS we all know, is the mother of invention, and with the prospect of an imminent invasion the urgent need for the creation of an effective volunteer fighting force to help defend Britain in 1940 was indeed a necessity. The key element was that of an ‘effective’ fighting force, for assembling large bodies of men, however willing and enthusiastic they may be, would mean little if they were not adequately armed and equipped. But with so much of the British Army’s equipment having been left behind on the beaches of Dunkirk, whatever military stocks remained in the UK were immediately allocated to the regular troops. This left little for the Local Defence Volunteers (renamed the Home Guard later in 1940).

television series Dad’s Army, generally saw themselves as serious soldiers and set about providing themselves with armoured fighting vehicles.

A PRESENTATION ARMOURED CAR

The 1930s had seen the development of motorised military vehicles, and no army could be considered ‘modern’ without armoured fighting vehicles. The men of the Home Guard, despite popular depictions and the subsequent impression of Corporal Jones’ armoured van from the BBC

In many instances, the first hurdle to be overcome by a Home Guard unit in any plans to acquire an armoured car was of obtaining the necessary funds. This was the reason why, at the beginning of August 1940, the Mayor of Barnstaple in Devon, Charles F. Dart, launched an appeal to raise the sum of £300 to ‘provide a Presentation Armoured Car for the Home Guard operating in a wide area in and around his Borough’. 

LEFT: Another ordinary saloon that has been adapted for use as an armoured car, again in the Tickler’s jam factory, for the Maidenhead Home Guard. BELOW: A third vehicle was donated to the 7th (Stroud) Battalion Gloucestershire Home Guard after the conversion of the other two, and transformed into an ambulance.

MAIN PICTURE: A pair of typical improvised Home Guard armoured cars, both of which were operated by the men of the 7th (Stroud) Battalion Gloucestershire Home Guard. This unit was fortunate in having a number of wealthy beneficiaries, with two local residents donating the vehicles, in both cases the popular Morris Cowley, that were used as the basis for the armoured cars, named The Eagle and Daniel. Using sheet steel of the approved thickness a local engineering firm then replaced the original bodywork with armoured shells. A number of other local tradesmen, as well as skilled members of the battalion, also played their part. No-one made a charge for any of the work. Finishing touches included the addition of camouflage paintwork, a pair of Hotchkiss machine-guns, wing-mounted markers to assist the driver with his steering, and even rear-view mirrors mounted on top of the armoured body. (ALL IMAGES COURTESY OF THE TANK MUSEUM UNLESS STATED OTHERWISE)

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THE HOME GUARD'S ARMOURED VEHICLES Defending Britain in 1940

TOP LEFT: Not all LDV and Home Guard units had the benefit of motor transport – as evidenced by this picture of men of the Rustington LDV taken in the summer of 1940. (COURTESY OF MRS MARY TAYLOR)

TOP RIGHT A volunteer with the Home Guard in the village of West Farleigh, near Maidstone in Kent, tries out his unit’s newly-acquired armoured car on 29 August 1940.

In his letter, published in many newspapers across the South West, Dart wrote: ‘The keenness which has been manifested throughout N. Devon in the building up of the Home Guard – to give the former L.D.V. their new official designation – coupled with a consideration of the importance of the defence work which they have undertaken, have prompted me to make an offer to the War Office. That offer is: to undertake the raising of a sufficient sum of money for the provision of an armoured car for the exclusive use of the Home Guard in the area covered by the local battalion. The details of the extent of that area are not, of course, proper material for

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mention in a letter to the Press or in public utterance, but it can be said that that territory is not by any means confined to one borough. Its scope is, indeed, such as to warrant the services of a large body of men and, I have suggested to the authorities, armoured cars facilities. ‘My suggestion has met with immediate and appreciative approval from those responsible for our military defence dispositions. I propose, therefore, to proceed at once with my appeal to the public in all the area affected, for approximately £300. This sum will enable us to have armoured car of approved design, constructed we hope locally by local craftsmen for local use, and to offer it as a gift to the War Office, who would, of course, be

entirely responsible for its manning and arms equipment. ‘It does appear that unless we can provide an armoured car by our local effort it would be unreasonable to expect the War Office to be in a position to provide every local battalion of the Home Guard with such super equipment. But such a gesture from the community has already been carried through with success in the cases of other units in different parts of Britain, enabling those units to be even better equipped for their work. I find that there is a strong local desire to emulate these examples.’

TICKLER’S TANK

Amongst the many of the early Home Guard armoured cars was one built for the Maidenhead Home Guard

ABOVE: This curvaceous armoured car was operated by the Cheadle Heath (Cheshire) Home Guard. This vehicle was converted at a local factory using a car and steel plates donated by members of the community. The vehicle, based on a saloon, cost the not inconsiderable sum of £80. Its fullyarmoured body, it was claimed, was proof against machine-gun and rifle-fire. A revolving turret was also fitted through which a Lewis or Vickers machine-gun projected. A pair of large double doors were fitted at the back which enabled the vehicle to also be used as an ambulance.

THE HOME GUARD'S ARMOURED VEHICLES Defending Britain in 1940

BELOW: This early Tickler armoured car may be the Sunbeam after conversion. Note the periscope fitted at the rear of the main body.

around the chassis of a 1935 Sunbeam 25hp saloon. Donations enabled the £5 to be raised to buy the car. The head of the Maidenhead Home Guard was a Colonel W.H. Tickler, the owner of a well-known Berkshire fruit-preserving firm, who placed the staff and facilities of his factory at the disposal of the battalion. Once inside the workshop, the original bodywork was removed and replaced by an armoured shell. This had been constructed from steel plates found around the factory and had a surprisingly streamlined appearance with a machine-gun in a turret. When the vehicle was shown to the local press it was inevitably christened ‘Tickler’s Tank’. It was noted that plans had been drawn up for a second version. This was to have two turrets from which four machine-guns could provide a complete circle of fire.

AMERICAN HOME GUARD

The inventive Maidenhead battalion also undertook a simpler, and no doubt, quicker conversion to a Standard saloon car by covering the radiator with armour and removing all the windows and replacing them with armoured plate. No less than seven rifle slots were cut in the plates and a Vickers machine-gun was mounted on the roof, making this otherwise ordinary car into a fearsome machine. Not every Home Guard unit had the resources or imagination to produce such sophisticated vehicles. Nevertheless, the platoon from the village of West Farleigh near Maidstone was able to convert an old 30hp Buick into an armoured fighting vehicle. The Buick, which

ON THE outbreak of war in 1939, American citizens in the UK had been advised by their embassy to return home unless their business or occupation made it essential to stay in London. Many decided that it did and defied their neutral status by forming what they called the American Mechanised Defence Corps. Affiliated to the Home Guard, the unit was officially referred to as the American Troop Home Guard. The unit was established by Mr. A.P. Buquor, a member of the American embassy staff in London, who was in turn supported by the millionaire anglophile Charles Sweeny. Commanded by General Wade Hayes, who boasted four rows of medals and whose US service went back to the Spanish-American War of 1898, this unit took on the responsibility of guarding the London District HQ one night in eight. Based in London the unit equipped itself entirely at its own expense, eventually possessing items still unavailable too much of the rest of the Home Guard. This included light and heavy machine guns, sub-machine guns, hand-grenades and a number of vehicles, such as the armoured car shown here being examined by Winston Churchill and Hayes in July 1940. Built on an American chassis and equipped with items such as a periscope, (see the left-hand side of the windscreen panel), and sealed door it is almost certain thɑt this vehicle was imported complete from the United States.

had been presented to the platoon by a local resident, was transformed into an armoured car simply by welding or bolting steel plating over the windows and radiator. No machine-guns were available, so slots were cut into the steel plating through which rifles and pistols could be aimed. Many of the Home Guard armoured car projects were the result of 

MIDDLE LEFT: Both the vehicle and the Home Guard volunteer (proudly showing his First World War medal ribbons) seen here are from the Luton Home Guard, wherein lies a clue as to the manufacturer of the source vehicle – in this case a Vauxhall 20/60 saloon. LEFT: A revised design of the Tickler armoured car, with improved driver’s visibility, a co-driver’s position and the addition of a revolving turret.

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THE HOME GUARD'S ARMOURED VEHICLES Defending Britain in 1940

JONES' BUTCHER'S VAN

ALMOST AS central to the ‘Dad’s Army’ cast as any of its actors was surely the famous van owned and operated in the series by Lance Corporal Jones of the Walmington-onSea Platoon as the delivery vehicle for his butcher’s shop business, and also doubling-up as the local Home Guard vehicle. In its latter role the van has probably become the most famous Home Guard vehicle of all time – albeit an entirely fictional one! Nonetheless, this fictional role was probably not too far from fact in terms of the variety of improvised vehicles that were pressed into Home Guard service throughout the war. In the case of Corporal Jones’ van, of course, it was used for transport and patrol purposes and its size enabled it to be used as means of transport for the entire platoon. One of its modifications, of course, was the provision of multiple loopholes along the body of the van through which the platoon could fire their rifles. The van itself was a 1935 Ford two-ton BB Box Van that had originally been acquired by the BBC’s props department and it first appeared in an episode of Dad’s Army on 11 September 1969 called ‘The Armoured Might of Lance Corporal Jones.’ The van also appeared at the Imperial War Museum in 1974 to promote an exhibition on ‘The Real Dad’s Army’. Since its use in the BBC series the van has changed hands at least twice, most recently in 2012 when it was sold by auctioneers Bonhams for £63,100 to the Home Guard Museum, Thetford. More recently it has returned to the screen in the new 2016 Dad’s Army feature film. TOP RIGHT: The armoured car built by a young volunteer, Peter Wise, and a few of his colleagues of the Bristol Home Guard. MIDDLE RIGHT: Another ordinary saloon that has been adapted for use as an armoured car, again in the Tickler’s jam factory, for the Maidenhead Home Guard.

ABOVE: The first stages in the conversion of a Sunbeam 25hp car into a Home Guard armoured car. The work seen here is being undertaken at the Berkshire factory of Colonel W.H. Tickler, a CO of the Maidenhead Home Guard.

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individuals or smaller groups. In February 1941 the Daily Mirror announced the completion of one such vehicle, construction of which had begun the previous August: ‘A Home Guard, aged twenty, and three of his colleagues have proudly reported for duty in a five-ton armoured car. They made it themselves to present to their battalion. It is worth £1,200. For six months they worked three or four nights a week, carrying on into the small hours through air raids. ‘The young Home Guard, Peter Wise, of Bristol, told the Daily Mirror: “We call it the Scrounge because we scrounged every single piece of material for her from friends and made her entirely with our own hands. We must have put in hundreds and hundreds of nuts and bolts. She was built with blood and sweat and toil and tears.” ‘Peter, the gunner of the car, is in civil life assistant manager both of a large butcher’s business and a garage owned by his grandfather, one of Bristol’s ex-Lord Mayors. But although he works a twelvehour day – incidentally, he cannot pass his medical examination for the Army – he has put in every spare moment he has on the car … Commander of the car is Home Guard J.S. Booth, a draughtsman aged twenty-seven, while first and second drivers are Home Guards K.J. King, aged thirty, and J. Richards, aged twenty-four, both constructional engineers.’

The Yorkshire Post and Leeds Intelligencer of Saturday, 17 August 1940, revealed that ‘a man who served his apprenticeship in a Yorkshire town has designed an armoured car for the defence of a Northern factory at which he is employed’. The reporter went on to add that ‘it will be used for patrolling and defending the works in case of an enemy invasion, and it has been praised by military experts, who consider it to be one of the finest armoured cars they have seen’: ‘The designer is Mr John Brook, who was formerly a draughtsman at a colliery, where his father, the late

THE HOME GUARD'S ARMOURED VEHICLES Defending Britain in 1940

LEFT: Another of the Villa-Campbell armoured cars based on a Dodge chassis. Here Villa can be seen holding a machine-gun for the photographer, while Campbell takes the wheel.

BELOW: As well as adding radiator and windscreen protection, all the other windows have been removed and replaced by steel plate.

Councillor G.A. Brook, was engineer for many years. His design has converted a second-hand 17hp 1937 car into a mechanical dragon which roars along at 50 miles an hour, consumes a gallon of petrol to every 15 miles, and cost only £80 to build. It has a steel superstructure in one piece, which fits right over the engine, the body and wheels; and the thick steel plating is proof against machine-gun and rifle fire. Further, it is streamlined so that bullets will glance off instead of penetrating it. ‘The driver looks through an open metal windscreen, but this can be closed and he can see through specially drilled holes. In the armour are six gun-slits through which men can fire.’

THE MOBILE PILLBOX

It was not just standard production cars that were adapted by the Home Guard. Conversions of the Fordson Major tractor were attempted, with what can only be described as limited success – speed not being the tractors’ greatest asset. A more successful adaptation was that of truck chassis by the Concrete Company, known as the ‘Bison’. This company took a 6x4 or 6x2 truck chassis and turned it into a mobile pillbox. Produced almost exclusively for the Home Guard, there were two types of Bison. The first comprised a separate concrete cab with a rear pillbox, whilst in the second type the Bison was built with a single body. Composed of a

thick layer of concrete with gun ports, there is no doubt that it would have been immune from small arms fire, and possibly even a light field piece. Many of these Bisons were used for airfield defence. The great advantage of the Bison was that the basic principle was easily adapted to any size of truck. One Company of the 12th (Saffron Walden and Dunmow) Battalion Essex Home Guard built four armoured lorries which were, it was stated, ‘available to take reinforcements as far as [the] Thames Estuary’. At one time the Morris Motor Company was the maker of almost half Britain’s motor cars and its value to the wartime economy was immense. Like many large companies it started its own defence force and, predictably, built its own armoured cars. Other attempts at producing armoured fighting vehicles were made by Sir Malcolm Campbell, who famously held both the world land and water speed records, and his mechanic and friend Leo Villa. Using designs drawn up by Villa, the pair constructed a number of vehicles for the Home Guard. Their most impressive collaboration was ‘Tubby the Tank Buster’ which carried a short 6-pounder gun, similar to those fitted to First World War ‘Male’ tanks.

on the grounds that ARP duties already occupied as much time as could be spared from their day-to-day work, but they were overruled by popular demand. In the first few weeks after Eden’s announcement, for example, over 200 volunteers from The Times alone had enrolled. Eventually the paper’s proprietor, John Astor, himself succumbed, eventually becoming the Commanding Officer of the 5th City of London (Press) Battalion. He even 

BELOW: What was once an AEC Regent double-decker bus has been converted into an armoured personnel carrier for the London Passenger Transport Board Home Guard. The driver had his own hinged armoured door, with the passengers gaining access through double rear doors.

COUNCIL PROPERTY

Many newspaper proprietors at first opposed recruiting amongst their staffs www.britainatwar.com 45

THE HOME GUARD'S ARMOURED VEHICLES Defending Britain in 1940

BELOW: Men of a Yorkshire Home Guard battalion ambushing their armoured car during exercises on the Yorkshire Dales. The caption for this picture suggests that the chassis on which this vehicle was built came from a Sunbeam saloon car. Note that a Molotov cocktail can be seen exploding in the road behind the armoured car.

MIDDLE & RIGHT: For some of the armoured vehicles supplied to the Maidenhead Home Guard by the Tickler’s jam factory an interesting method of radiator protection was employed – such as that on this converted Ford V8. Here a 9-inch wide container with a cavity in the middle, and mounted at the front of the vehicle, is being filled with gravel and pebbles. In tests carried out on the device in the summer of 1940 all of the bullets fired at it failed to penetrate both sides of the container and the gravel contents. A piece of steel sheeting, tested at the same time, was cleanly pierced. BELOW: Yet another of the many armoured cars produced by Tickler’s jam factory for the Home Guard – a ‘Molotov Slinger’ can be seen in one of the pictures.

took the step of having his own RollsRoyce converted into an armoured car. Another unit which was similarly equipped was the 47th (London County Council) Battalion. The historian David Fletcher describes the vehicle thus: ‘The armour, such as it was, usually amounted to steel plate no more than 6mm thick and hardly even bulletproof although the .303-inch Vickers machine gun in the turret was real enough. Cooling air for the radiator must have been drawn in under the armour since there is no grille or doors at the front, but [it had] hinged panels on the wheel covers, which would come in handy if it was necessary to change a wheel.’ It is known that the battalion also operated an armoured car of similar appearance and which was based on a 1936 Standard chassis.

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Other public body Home Guard units also built armoured vehicles, including the London Passenger Transport Board Home Guard. Formed from the management, drivers, conductors and mechanics from a number of the London bus depots, this unit, somewhat naturally, used the vehicles most readily on hand – their buses. London Transport eventually

COMMUNITY SPIRIT

formed seven Home Guard battalions, serving under such exotic names s the ‘Camberwell Tram Depot Home Guard’, or the ‘Dartford County Bus Depot Home Guard’. Four wheels was not always the prerequisite of a Home Guard’s armed or armoured transport. The Port of London Authority Home Guard equipped small craft with weapons and river craft, such as motor boats were employed by the Birmingham Home Guard.

The Camelford Home Guard proudly sported a 2.5 lire Jaguar four-door saloon, its radiator armoured and with a body-conversion that held a Bren gun. Other luxury cars were generously handed over by local individuals, such as the Vauxhall 20/60 saloon of the Luton Home Guard which was heavily armoured, though it initially carried no weapons. By comparison the Blackburn Home Guard shielded a little Austin Riley with very little armour plating but fitted it with a 1918-pattern A2 Browning automatic rifle. The very purpose of the LDV and, in due course, the Home Guard, was that of, as its first name indicated, local defence by local people. This generated a strong sense of community spirit to which many people contributed – all of which was evident in the production of many of the armoured cars brought into service from 1940 onwards. 

A STRANGER TO FEAR VC Tank Killer of Colito FAR RIGHT: Nigel Gray Leakey (1913-1941). The only member of the Kenya Regiment to be awarded the Victoria Cross during the Second World War. MAIN IMAGE: Italian tanks operating in the rugged terrain of Abyssinia in 1941.

T

HE HUNT went on amid a tangle of thorn bushes and gnarled trees sprouting from giant ant hills as shadows crept across the bodystrewn battlefield on the banks of the Billate river. It was late afternoon on May 19, 1941 and stunning victory in the so-called Battle of the Lakes, the struggle to free southern Ethiopia from Italian occupation, had given way to an increasingly desperate search.

British officers and noncommissioned officers joined with African askari in a frantic effort to find the man who had single-handedly defeated an enemy armoured attack armed only with a service revolver. Having already captured one tank, Sergeant Nigel Leakey, a 28-year-old mortar detachment commander with the 1/6th King’s African Rifles, was last seen clinging to the turret of a second one as it careered back through the bushes. Dusk cut short the search when the troops were pulled back to help consolidate the vital river bridgehead near the village of Colito. By the time

they resumed their quest the following morning it was too late. Overnight bands of Ethiopian irregulars, known as ‘Shifta’, had swarmed across the vacated ground, looting vehicles and stripping all of the bodies of clothes and equipment. By the time Leakey’s mortar officer, John Pollard, ventured across the river there was no sign of the ‘missing’ sergeant anywhere. Parties of the 2nd Nigerian Regiment had already “made a good job of clearing up”. The dead, with friend and foe indistinguishable from one another, had been buried mostly en masse. “There wasn’t much else to see,” observed Pollard, except for an abandoned tractor, several ammunition

Armed only with a revolver, Nigel Leakey singlehandedly took on a squadron of tanks to turn the tide of battle 75 years ago. Steve Snelling charts a story of unbelievable bravery during the Abyssinian campaign and the subsequent struggle to recognise his gallantry.

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A STRAN

A STRANGER TO FEAR VC Tank Killer of Colito

trucks and, as he put it, the “grim spectacle” of one of Leakey’s tank victims lying abandoned in the bush, “a dead Eyetie caught in the track”. The fate of the ‘tank-killer of Colito’ remained a mystery when the 1/6th KAR moved out from the Billate in heavy rain two days later. As they resumed their long march towards the Italian strongholds of Soddu and Jimma, they did so in the hope that they would shortly be reunited with the man whose extraordinary exploit was already the talk of the units making up 22nd East African Brigade. To his comrades as well as his senior commanders it seemed a foregone conclusion that his magnificent bravery would be marked by the highest of

martial honours. The only question in their minds as the battlefield of Colito faded from view was whether or not the award would be a posthumous one. For the time being at least, they remained optimistic. As Brigadier Charles ‘Fluffy’ Fowkes, later wrote: “We… hoped that we should find Sgt Leakey in enemy hands…”

‘I’M NOT FINISHED YET’

Nigel Gray Leakey was no stranger to struggles against the odds. Fearless, forthright and formidably self-reliant, his character and outlook were shaped during a childhood growing up in the wilds of northern Kenya surrounded by hyena, lions, leopards, zebra and the occasional elephant. 

ANGER TO FEAR

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A STRANGER TO FEAR VC Tank Killer of Colito BELOW: An artist’s impression of men of the King’s African Rifles wading a river during the Abyssinian campaign. It was after one such crossing near Colito that the 1/6th Battalion staged a full-blooded bayonet charge that broke Italian resistance on the banks of the Billate.

Born in Nairobi on New Year’s Day 1913, the eldest son of early settlers, Arundell Gray Leakey and his wife, Elizabeth (née Laing), he learned to shoot and hunt at an early age - one time facing down a lion to allow his two brothers and sister to get away before making his own escape. In a boyhood crammed with adventure and no little tragedy, he overcame serious illness, the early death of his mother and enforced separation from his family and the country he loved.

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Shipped off to live with his father’s sister and her husband, who was a housemaster at Bromsgrove School, he struggled to conform to what seemed an alien way of life. “Like me,” his sister Agnes later recounted, “he felt confined and constricted in England after the freedom of our life in the wide open spaces of Kenya.” He nevertheless shone as a member of the school’s OTC shooting team and impressed with his spirited boxing performances.

A STRANGER TO FEAR VC Tank Killer of Colito

His aunt recalled one fight that was stopped to avoid him taking further punishment. “He was indignant,” she recalled. “‘I’m not finished yet,’ he complained.” It prompted the school’s boxing trainer to remark: “He never knows when he is beaten.” Socially awkward and academically backward, he came into his own during family summer camps, astonishing his cousins by his field craft and his skill at snaring rabbits and snakes. Back at school, he floundered. In the end, he left without gaining his final certificate

‘THE MOST HAZARDOUS FEATS’

His farming days ended abruptly with his call-up a week before the outbreak of war in September 1939. As a member of the Kenya Regiment since its inception two years earlier, he was among the first in the colony to find himself in uniform. Originally raised with the idea of providing instructors and junior leaders for the region’s premier unit, the King’s African Rifles, the new volunteer force made up mostly of white farmers and the sons of farmers quickly fulfilled its role. Within days of hostilities beginning, Leakey found himself posted as a sergeant to the 1/6th Battalion, KAR, which had only just moved to Nanyuki, on the western slopes of Mount Kenya, from its base at Dar-es-Salaam in Tanganyika. Commanded by Lieutenant Colonel Colin Blackden, a no-nonsense South Wales Borderer, the unit formed part of a small, overstretched force tasked with guarding a thousand square miles of semi-desert from the Sudan to the Indian Ocean bordering Italianheld territory in Abyssinia and Somaliland. After months of relative inactivity, the ‘cold war’ finally turned ‘hot’ in June 1940 when Italy sided with

Germany. Almost immediately Italian forces laid siege to the small frontier fort at Moyale, one of a handful of strong-points freckling the northern frontier. It was here, a few weeks later, that Nigel Leakey began to acquire a reputation for fearlessness in keeping with his bravery displayed as a child growing up in Kenya and as a junior boxer in the ring at Bromsgrove. He was among a volunteer patrol that set out on the night of July 13/14 to create a diversion to enable the invested garrison to slip away. Over the coming months, his desire to be at the forefront of any action would come to typify his approach to soldiering. As Captain George Robson, his patrol leader at Moyale, later attested: “It was characteristic of Sgt Leakey to volunteer for anything of this sort.” To Second Lieutenant John Pollard, who served with him in the mortar platoon, he was “without exception, the bravest man I ever knew”. Remembering him years later, he wrote: “A complete stranger to fear, he was prepared to perform the most hazardous feats without regard to personal danger. He was also an excellent soldier in the technical sense. His mortar detachment was always the most efficient and best led. Only once did he clash with the CO in regard to turn-out, when he came across an abandoned iron bedstead and put it in his lorry for future use. The regimental mind was naturally outraged. But this minor lapse was soon forgotten after his feats in battle.” 

FAR LEFT: Robert, Agnes, Rea and Nigel Leakey with their parents and pet dog, Buster, around 1920. Arundell Gray Leakey served with the Carrier Corps during the First World War in Africa. LEFT: Nigel, left, with two of his cousins during a summer camp while he was at Bromsgrove in the late 1920s. BELOW LEFT: Nigel Leakey, left, with his father and stepmother, at Nyeri, in Kenya, in 1937. Arundell and Bessie Leakey were murdered by the Mau Mau in October 1954. Nigel’s posthumously awarded VC was later recovered from the family home by his brother Rea. BELOW: Nigel Leakey, seated far right middle row, as a cadet member of the Bromsgrove School rifle team that shot at Bisley in 1929.

because, as his sister put it, “he was so impatient to get back to Kenya”. Rejoining his father in Nyeri where he had remarried and taken a new farm, he took a variety of jobs, working on sisal and coffee estates, before branching out on his own. For a number of years, he and a small team of African workers operated a mobile sisal decorticating service. By 1939, he appeared set fair. With his profits from the sisal business, he acquired a 382-acre farm at Londiani, built himself a temporary two-room house and began growing pyrethrum - a natural insecticide. However, his hopes of making a success of the venture were destined to be dashed before he’d hardly begun. www.britainatwar.com 51

A STRANGER TO FEAR VC Tank Killer of Colito

ABOVE: Nigel Leakey with some of his African workers in 1938. RIGHT: A scout car carrying the brigade major of 22nd Brigade enters Addis Ababa on April 6, 1941. BELOW: Nigel, Robert and Rea Leakey. All three brothers served in the army during the war. Rea earned a DSO, MC and Bar and Czech Military Cross with the Royal Tank Regiment.

More difficult to fathom was his strange obsession with biblical prophesy that led some in the battalion to regard him as something of an oddball if not a religious crank. As a British Israelite, he believed among other things that the modern CeltoSaxon nations could claim literal descent from the Children of Israel and he was not adverse to airing his views. According to Pollard, he “ruined his chances” of a commission by “talking a lot of nonsense about the British Israelites” at his East African OCTU. “On one occasion, he told me that the Nile would flow backwards and other absurdities.” Another time, added Pollard, “he forecast that the war would go worse for us before it went better… and the Russians would join the Germans in North Africa against us! I was naturally depressed by all this and devoutly trusted that there might be some error in his calculations.” Not surprisingly some of his colleagues in the 1/6th KAR thought him “mad”, but Pollard and others closer to him were prepared to give him the benefit of the doubt. Pollard later wrote: “Madness, of course, is close to genius… He was soft-spoken and the calmest person I ever met. I never saw him in a rage. He was always in control of himself…” In short, he considered him just “the kind of stuff that VCs are made of”.

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‘EFFECTIVE SUPPORT’

It was an opinion reinforced by Leakey’s behaviour when a combined South African, West African and East African force commanded by Lieutenant General Alan Cunningham went on the offensive, taking the war from the Northern Frontier District of Kenya into the very heart of Mussolini’s East African empire. Pollard recalled an incident during the advance on Addis Ababa when an armoured car unit came under attack from Italian artillery in the Arba Pass. “I went forward with George Robson, who was commanding A Company, together with Sgts Leakey and Malan

A STRANGER TO FEAR VC Tank Killer of Colito

with their mortar detachments in the rather vain hope of engaging the enemy who naturally far out-gunned us. “Not to be outdone, Leakey went forward and, by reducing the angle of the mortar barrel, considerably increased its range.” Following the fall of Addis on April 6, 1941, Leakey continued to display all his customary energy and enterprise as 1/6th KAR spearheaded 11th East African Division’s push to open the route into Kenya by clearing the Italian forces from the inhospitable terrain around the Great Lakes south of the Abyssinian capital.

The advance blocked by a powerful enemy position along the Little Dadaba river, the battalion’s four mortar detachments kept up a nightlong harassing bombardment while another unit attempted an outflanking movement. Torrential rain was falling and the 1/6th KAR came under heavy shell and machine-gun fire. Leakey, however, was undeterred. According to Pollard, he “distinguished himself by climbing a vertiginous tree” from where he directed both mortar and artillery fire onto the enemy positions. Although exposed to the enemy’s fire,

Leakey held on until dawn, reporting enemy movements “by observing the headlights of lorries and AFVs”. After the action, there was talk, wrote Pollard, of him being mentioned in despatches. A few days later he was part of a small force commanded by Captain Richard Creswell, comprising a company of infantry, seven armoured cars and a mortar detachment, sent to locate what was thought to be a strong enemy position near the village of Colito east of the Billate river. Twice the reconnaissance

was halted by heavy shelling and machine-gun fire, the troops and vehicles withdrawing under cover of Leakey’s mortars which, in the words of the battalion war diary, “gave very effective support” throughout. In the course of the operation, Creswell had been fatally wounded having apparently mistaken white artillery flags for offers of surrender. It was a tragic loss but there was little doubt that the force had been spared heavier losses by Leakey’s well-directed intervention. “When the patrol returned,” wrote Pollard, “everyone was ecstatic about Leakey’s bravery and it was suggested that he be put up for a Military Medal.” No such award was made by simple virtue of the fact that his exploit near Sciasciamanna was about to be overshadowed by an altogether more spectacular feat of individual daring performed just two days later in what would prove the decisive encounter of the Battle of the Lakes. 

ABOVE: Soldiers of the West African Frontier Force dismantle Italian border signs on the outermost frontier of Mussolini’s East African empire. ABOVE LEFT: The fort at Moyale on the Kenyan frontier was the scene of Leakey’s baptism of fire in July 1940, a month after Italy’s entry into the war. BELOW: Men of the King’s African Rifles enter Kismayu, on the Somali coast, in February 1941.

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A STRANGER TO FEAR VC Tank Killer of Colito RIGHT: Brigadier Charles ‘Fluffy’ Fowkes giving orders during 22nd Brigade’s advance. Fowkes strongly endorsed Leakey’s VC recommendation in 1941 and again in 1945.

BELOW RIGHT: Second Lieutenant Philip Thorne was seconded from the Royal Scots to 1/6th KAR. Wounded in the forefront of A Company’s assault, he was subsequently awarded the Military Cross, one of four given to officers of the unit for the Billate river action. BELOW: This artist’s impression of Leakey’s action appeared in a Kenyan newspaper in 1945.

‘HEARTY BRITISH CHEER’

As with the earlier action, Nigel Leakey’s intended participation in the struggle to seize a bridgehead over the Billate river was by way of a supporting role. His detachment of 3-inch mortars were detached to offer covering fire to A and C Companies, respectively commanded by Lieutenant Ted Onslow and Second Lieutenant Roger Swynnerton, as they pushed forward towards Colito shortly after dawn on May 19. They made quick progress at first. The Italians, having demolished the only bridge, had abandoned the west bank and were hunkered down in well-camouflaged trenches and machine-gun posts cut in and around a plethora of tree-shrouded ant-hills studding the far side of the river. Their strength was unknown, but it was apparent they were wellcovered by a number of exposed artillery pieces which opened fire as the vanguard of 1/6th KAR approached the river. What happened next is unclear. According to some, the unit’s CO, Colin Blackden, immediately issued orders to his two leading companies to press on across the river and “sweep up the Italians on the other side”. Others, however, credit the decision to follow up their early success to Major ‘Lucy’ Field, the battalion’s second in command who was up front with A and C Companies. Either way, with the rest of the battalion taking up a covering position some 400 yards back from the river and the guns of an Indian mountain battery replying to the Italian artillery, an initial crossing was made by a single platoon out of sight of the enemy positions to the north of the bridge. Part of A Company, it was led by Second Lieutenant Philip Thorne and consisted of a British sergeant and fewer than 20 Askari. Covered by fire from the other side of the river, they were to advance along the eastern bank as far as the bridge, mopping up any Italian positions along the way. Thorne later called it “a damn silly plan”, but for a while it seemed to work, even though the bush was so thick they could not see the enemy and, at times, they found themselves under fire from friend and foe alike. Accompanied by a handful of Africans who showed “fantastic bravery”, he silenced at least one wellconcealed enemy machine-gun post before deciding they were too few to continue much further without

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reinforcement. Things then moved fast. His sergeant, sent back to report, found an easier ford nearer to the bridge and shortly after midday he returned with the rest of A Company, together with C Company and the battalion’s second in command. “The next thing I knew,” recalled Thorne, “I was getting ‘blown out of the water’ by him saying, ‘What the hell are you doing staying here - we’re just going in with the bayonet’.” Moments later Thorne and his handful of askari had joined with the others. “They lined up,” he recalled, “and went in with the bayonet and a hearty British cheer… I went in with ’em and the Italians popped out of every blinking bush.” From an artillery observation post on the other side of the river, John Pollard, who had been with the CO at the start of the action, glimpsed Leakey and his mortar team firing away for dear life. “Then came the sound of a charge,” he wrote, “and Ted Onslow’s voice bawling “Come on A Company. Come on A Company.”

MOMENTARY CONFUSION Surprised both by the direction and ferocity of the attack, the Italians began surrendering in droves. But for many it was too late. Discarding their rifles in favour of machete-like knives known as pangas, the askari literally hacked their way through the Italian position

A STRANGER TO FEAR VC Tank Killer of Colito

as the charge descended into chaos and carnage. Thorne found himself surrounded by Italians “begging” to be taken prisoner rather than face the wrath of the knife-wielding Africans. “There was an awful lot of people milling about,” he recalled. A flutter of white handkerchiefs was observed from the other side of the river as Italian resistance buckled and Second

Lieutenant John Pitt recalled having to draw his revolver on his own men to stop them “taking pot shots at the surrendering enemy”. With the main position captured, A and C Companies maintained the momentum of their electrifying advance, pushing on over ground thick with thorn bushes and trees as far as the enemy’s motor transport laager some 1,200 yards south of the bridge. From the left, the sound of the remnants of the Italian force being mopped up carried back to the heart of the enemy position where Pitt, having found his way over the river by way

of shattered bridge timbers, had begun rounding up prisoners. By 1600, it appeared to be all over. The fighting had all but ceased and the victors were in the process of consolidating and gathering in a harvest of enemy arms and equipment when suddenly the general din was interrupted by a new more menacing noise. To John Pollard, it was “a sharp multiple sound like that of a naval pom-pom”. At that moment, the artillery forward observation officer alongside him shouted, “Tanks!” 

ABOVE: The Victor edition of June 29, 1963 featured the story of Nigel Leakey VC on its front and back cover under the heading ‘The Tank-killer of Colito’. BELOW: Soldiers of the KAR training in Kenya.

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A STRANGER TO FEAR VC Tank Killer of Colito RIGHT: Lieutenant General Alan Cunningham, commanding East Africa Force. He lobbied the War Office to re-open Leakey’s case and submitted a second recommendation with additional information at the end of the war. BELOW: Italian light tanks, guns and lorries captured during the advance through Abyssinia. BELOW RIGHT: Leakey’s original recommendation was rejected as being not up to the ‘required standard for the Victoria Cross’.

There was a momentary confusion as around seven M11 medium tanks were reported rumbling along the road leading towards ground occupied by Ted Onslow’s A Company. With no anti-tank weapons, Lieutenant John Martin, whose platoon had led the way during the last push, ordered his men to withdraw. “I went back through the bush and my troops went faster,” he later recalled. Further back, Pitt and his men sought cover in some riverside gullies, while others scattered. Thorne, meanwhile, was convinced he was about to die. Wounded in the hip during the latter stages of the action, he lay on a stretcher in a roadside ditch directly in the path of the tanks with “dirt” flying all around. Moments later, he saw Nigel Leakey “flitting” past him. He was unclear what he was doing there, but he was headed in the direction of the tanks.

‘I’LL GET THEM ON FOOT’

Leakey had no need to put himself in harm’s way. In fact, as John Martin later observed, he needn’t have been anywhere near the sharp end of the action. But having exhausted his supply of mortar bombs, he had sought and gained permission to accompany

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Onslow’s A Company as it advanced through the enemy position. In Martin’s words: “He just loped along with Ted, with his revolver and grenades, eager for action.” Together with some of his askari mortar men, Leakey was still up front with Onslow at the farthest point of the enemy position when they suddenly heard a tank starting up in thick bush behind them. “We went back a little way,” wrote Onslow, “and saw an enemy tank coming towards us.” It was about 50 yards away and it rumbled forward, “firing its cannon and machine gun”, before coming to a

halt behind a bush. Leakey reacted immediately. Without waiting for orders or support of any kind, he made straight for the tank armed only with his service revolver. It was an outlandish stroke bordering on the suicidal. Although almost all of the enemy position had been mopped up, there was, according to Onslow, “still medium machine gun and small arms fire coming at us from the flank”. To reach the tank, Leakey knew full well he would have to run a potential gauntlet of enemy fire and no sooner had he set off than they were sprayed with “heavy fire” from other enemy tanks. The Kenyan sergeant, however, was not to be denied. He coolly stalked his prey, crawling some of the way but mostly doubling from one bush to another until he was right beside it. Then, almost as if the crew were suddenly aware of his presence, the tank lurched forward, all guns blazing. Several of Onslow’s men were hit, and one non-commissioned officer killed, but Leakey, ignoring the danger, leapt onto the front of the tank. “The tank went mad,” Onslow later told a war correspondent. “It came out into the open, then on to the road, and went off like blazes, firing all that it had got…

A STRANGER TO FEAR VC Tank Killer of Colito

“Leakey was straddling the machinegun, one leg on either side, and there he was, quite happy on top of the tank, struggling with the lid of the turret. “After the tank had gone, I suppose, a hundred yards, I saw the lid of the turret come up. I then saw Leakey poke his revolver inside and fire four or five shots rapid.” Leakey had killed two of the crew but stopped short of shooting the driver as, even then, in the heat of combat, a plan was forming in his mind. From a short distance away, Onslow watched in amazement as the tank stopped and Leakey dragged the dead two crewmen out before climbing inside and forcing the driver - “a miserable specimen” - to manoeuvre the tank under cover. Hauling out the driver, an exultant

Leakey was already contemplating the next stage of his ambitious plan. “By God,” he called to Onslow, “we’ll get the others - with this tank we’ve got ’em absolutely cold.” Sadly, it was not to be. Despite his best efforts, he could not get the gun to work. “It was no good asking the driver,” added Onslow. “He was so frightened that he was hardly a human being.” By then, Onslow’s men were taking casualties as more enemy tanks closed in. But Leakey, undismayed by the failure of his original plan, refused to be beaten. Turning to Onslow, he simply remarked: “I’ll get them on foot.” And with that he was gone. Onslow’s last sight of him was moving forward into the bush, followed by his orderly Lance Corporal Saidi Muhumi, mortar man Private Alois Sunjibujosi and

A Company sergeant major Yona Onyango. What followed was a desperately gallant and ultimately tragic attempt to repeat his earlier success that is best described in the words of one of the three men to witness his final act of bravery. “After going a little way,” recalled CSM Onyango, “we heard the tanks coming down the road towards us. We hid in the bush and soon saw four tanks in line ahead coming towards us. Sgt Leakey let the first two tanks pass and then jumped on the third tank. “He managed to open the turret and kill one of the crew when the fourth tank opened fire with a machine gun and shot Sgt Leakey off the tank…” 

TOP: Italian light tank crews pose for the camera in Abyssinia. ABOVE: Ted Onslow, left, at the 1946 Victory Parade in London. He received a Military Cross for his part in the fight at Colito and added a Bar to it in Burma.

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A STRANGER TO FEAR VC Tank Killer of Colito RIGHT: Arundell Gray Leakey proudly displays his eldest son’s Victoria Cross after a Buckingham Palace investiture in 1946. Accompanying him were his younger son, Lieutenant Colonel Rea Leakey, far right, who received his Distinguished Service Order at the same ceremony, his daughter, Agnes, third from the left, and her future husband, Bremer Hofmeyr, fourth left, and Nigel’s godmother and aunt, Clare Gillibrand, second from the left.

LEGACY OF VALOUR

‘SUPERB COURAGE’

The first John Pollard knew about any of this was some time after when, during a pause in the hiatus, Muhumi and Sunjibujosi reported back “in a high state of excitement”. Together, they related an astonishing tale of heroism. “It was a well-nigh unbelievable story,” wrote Pollard. “At least it would have been unbelievable in the case of anyone else, but anything was possible in the case of one who had never known the meaning of fear.” A little later Onslow appeared. “I wouldn’t go through that again for anything in the world,” he declared Memories of Nigel Leakey’s astonishing bravery on an and then explained “how Leakey had Abyssinian battlefield were stirred a year ago when the turned the tide ofnation’s battle by his London Gazette announced the whole award of the extraordinary bravery”.of his family. highest martial honour to another member Joshua Leakey, a 27-year-old lance-corporal serving By 1800hrs, what remained of in the the 1st Battalion, the Parachute was decorated Italian force Regiment, had fled. They left behind for his outstanding heroism at Bar Nowzad, in Helmand around 100 dead scattered across Province, Afghanistan on August 22, 2013. theofbattlefield, 489 European and 31 The official account his award, which was gazetted African prisoners of war,with together in February 2015, bore remarkable similarity his forebear’s Second World Warfield action, though this time with 10 guns, 13 heavy and there 25 were no tanks involved. Like his second cousin twice removed before him, Josh Leakey was credited with single-handedly turning the tide of battle by his repeated acts of bravery in which he showed a “complete disregard for his own safety”. Part of a joint British-American patrol deployed deep in Taliban-controlled territory, he took effective charge after a US Marine officer was wounded and the command group pinned down on an exposed hillside by rocket-propelled grenades and heavy machine-gun fire. Three times he ran the gauntlet of fire to treat the injured officer and recover machine-guns before turning them on the 20-strong force of insurgents to break up their attack. Inspired by his desperate courage, the rest of the patrol fought back with renewed vigour, beating off the Taliban, who suffered 11 dead and four wounded, and allowing the safe evacuation of the wounded marine. Leakey, who was praised for his display of “gritty leadership well above that expected of his rank”, later confessed: “The only thing I was scared of was letting the cap badge down.”

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light machine-guns, approximately 300 rifles, 15 lorries and three tanks at least two of which were victims of Nigel Leakey’s startling intervention. That night the 1/6th KAR mess was abuzz with post-battle excitement. Pollard recalled: “‘Lucy’ [Field] was full of C Company’s exploits with the panga. But the CO wasn’t listening. ‘I think,’ he said, ‘that we’ll try and get old Leakey a VC’.” The initial recommendation was submitted eight days later after prisoner interrogations revealed that one of the men killed in the first tank was the 25th Division’s armoured force’s commanding officer, Colonel De Cicco, who had only recently taken charge. Endorsed by Lieutenant General Cunningham, GOC East Africa Force, and Brigadier ‘Fluffy’ Fowkes it credited Leakey with singlehandedly halting “a most dangerous enemy counter-attack which

threatened to destroy all our infantry who had crossed the river”. But it suffered from being hurriedly written up and gave only the scantiest idea of the remarkable nature of the action. The recommendation was consequently rejected as not being up to “VC standard”. One member of the army’s honours and awards committee, Lieutenant General Arthur FloyerAcland, suggested that if Leakey was found to be still alive he should be awarded a Distinguished Conduct Medal and if dead a posthumous mention in despatches. He further observed: “Although Sergeant Leakey certainly displayed great gallantry, I regard his action as of the spontaneous nature, lacking the elements of long sustained courage and endurance which tell of the highest form of self-sacrifice.” Cunningham, Fowkes and Leakey’s KAR colleagues profoundly disagreed and persisted with their efforts to have

A STRANGER TO FEAR VC Tank Killer of Colito FAR LEFT: A note to Chief of the Imperial General Staff dated October 9, 1945, underlines General Cunningham’s persistent efforts to see Leakey’s heroism recognised.

his bravery properly recognised even after the war had ended. Armed with “new information” which included, for the first time, testimony from CSM Onyango, a second recommendation was made that revealed the outrageous risks taken by Leakey and the farreaching consequences of his action on subsequent operations. “The superb courage and magnificent fighting spirit which Sgt Leakey displayed, facing almost certain death, was an incentive to the troops who fought with inspiration derived from witnessing the gallantry of this NCO’s remarkable feat,” wrote Cunningham, “and succeeded in retaining their positions in face of considerable odds.” Two months later and almost 4½ years after the action, the London Gazette of November 15, 1945 finally drew a line under the enduring controversy with the announcement that, at the second attempt, Nigel Gray Leakey had been posthumously awarded the Victoria Cross. One

question, however, remained unresolved: how had ‘the tank killer of Colito’ met his death? CSM Onyango was of the opinion that he was almost certainly “killed outright” in attacking the second tank. But since his body was never found no one could be sure. A fellow member of the mortar platoon, Second Lieutenant (later major general) Rowland ‘Toto’ Mans, was not alone in fearing he may have fallen victim to the so-called ‘Shifta’ who plundered the battlefield in search of loot during the night after the fighting. “It was our belief at the time,” he wrote, “that perhaps the local Ethiopian irregulars had found him perhaps wounded or dead and confused him for an Italian.” Either way, he had almost certainly been hastily buried in a grave shared by the men he’d fought so hard to defeat. Whatever the truth, it was an unceremonious end ill-befitting one of the bravest individual actions of the Second World War. 

NEAR LEFT: Even before the Victoria Cross was granted, Leakey’s valour was feted in his native Kenya. A reconstruction of his action was staged as part of a military pageant at Nakuru in 1944.

ABOVE & BELOW: Having no known grave Nigel Leakey VC is commemorated on the East Africa Memorial in the Nairobi War Cemetery.

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THE SILENT SOUND OF DEFEAT The Aftermath of Dunkirk

THE SILENT SOUND

OF DEFEAT

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THE SILENT SOUND OF DEFEAT The Aftermath of Dunkirk

I

T WAS on 20 May 1940, just ten days after Hitler had launched his invasion of France and the Low Countries, that Lord Gort reached the conclusion that unless the British Expeditionary Force immediately withdrew from France it risked being cut off from the coast and destroyed. It was an immensely courageous decision to make after less than two weeks of fighting, but without question it saved the British army and prevented Hitler from achieving the comprehensive victory that would have ended the war in 1940. 

For days the British Expeditionary Force and various French units in and around the port of Dunkirk had endured bombardment from land and air. That was until the last ship had departed and the fighting ceased. Then all was indeed quiet on that part of the Western Front, to the amazement of a young German officer, Oberleutnant Heinrich Braumann.

BELOW: The immediate aftermath of Operation Dynamo – the scene that greeted Oberleutnant Braumann and his colleagues when they reached this stretch of the French coast. (ALL IMAGES HISTORIC MILITARY PRESS UNLESS STATED OTHERWISE)

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THE SILENT SOUND OF DEFEAT The Aftermath of Dunkirk

and bombarded from the land as the perimeter was gradually driven in. ‘British troops have fought magnificently in seven days of the fiercest battle in history,’ ran the words of an article in The Times. ‘They are still in contact with the enemy and are making determined stands whenever necessary. If any army has ever pulled its weight in a really desperate battle against great odds our men of the “little B.E.F.” have done it and deserve the highest tributes. They have fought for days in intense heat – against overwhelming forces under a hail of bombs from machines shrieking downwards at over 300 miles an hour. They have been swept again and again and again by a storm of machinegun bullets from the air. Tanks have harried them from front and ABOVE: To accompany his account of the events during the capture of Dunkirk, Oberleutnant Braumann attached a number of photographs to his report. One of the first that he had taken, during his unit’s approach to Dunkirk, he captioned: ‘Countless destroyed English vehicles clog the village streets.’

The BEF withdrew to the Channel ports with the Germans close on its heels. But, on 22 May Hitler agreed to allow his Panzer divisions to halt their advance, which gave the British and French troops a few days grace to establish a defensive perimeter around Dunkirk which could be held whilst efforts were made by the Royal Navy to try and evacuate as many men as possible. On 26 May the evacuation began. Famously assisted by hundreds of privately owned small boats, British warships and merchant vessels lifted more than 300,000 men from the beaches and the harbour of Dunkirk. During the eight days of the evacuation, the troops waiting on the beaches had been subjected to unrelenting attacks by the Luftwaffe

BELOW: One of the most visible signs to friend and foe alike that they were nearing Dunkirk during the fighting in 1940 were the clouds of dense black smoke that hung in the sky over the port – as photographed here by a German soldier. One of the main sources of this acrid pall of smoke was burning oil storage tanks.

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ABOVE: ‘For the last 20km of our advance on Dunkirk the streets had been littered with English war material’, wrote Braumann beneath this picture in his report. The presence of the overhead electricity wires and gantries for a tram or railway, and the high sandy dunes beyond, suggest that this photograph might have been taken in the vicinity of Bray-Dunes to the east of Dunkirk itself. Located on the border with Belgium, Bray-Dunes is the northern-most point in all of France.

THE SILENT SOUND OF DEFEAT The Aftermath of Dunkirk

and bombarded shipwrecks, past the countless remnants and debris embedded in the fine sand after having been left behind in a mad rush by the defeated British regiments. Past walk this endless train of men; past the crumbled houses, which now stand empty on the beach; also past us, who have been privileged to witnesses the greatest of victories; past, they go into captivity! 

rear. Shells from every type of weapon, from heavy artillery to trench mortars.’ The last Allied evacuation ship departed on 3 June and, apart from isolated pockets of resistance, the fighting ceased. One of the advancing Germans, Oberleutnant Heinrich Braumann, vividly described the scenes and the sounds on the morning of 4 June in a report he subsequently submitted to his commanding officer: ‘On the beaches of Bray-Bains, the guns and cannons have been absolutely quiet for hours. Not even the loud noise of the machine-guns disturbs the total silence that has now come over us. Day and night, hour after hour, grenades and bombs had fallen in frightening numbers and with

brute force on this last gateway to England. The muffled rumbling and throaty growling of artillery and machineguns mixed with the roars of the Stukas had painfully filled our ears for days on end. And now, nothing but silence! Surely, this cannot mean anything other than Dunkirk must have fallen!’

BROKEN MEN

‘Suddenly! A vision on the beaches of Bray-Bains,’ continued Braumann. ‘A very long, worm-like line of soldiers is creeping slowly in our direction, from Dunkirk. This monster creeps closer and closer, it passes by the stranded

ABOVE: Taken by a German soldier, this picture shows captured French and British troops being escorted through the streets of Dunkirk. LEFT: French and British military vehicles, including at least two Universal Carriers and a Morris Quad, block a road into Dunkirk and its environs.

ABOVE: Taken by a German soldier, this is a street sign on the old D16 running into Dunkirk just after Operation Dynamo.

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THE SILENT SOUND OF DEFEAT The Aftermath of Dunkirk

TOP LEFT: German soldiers pose for the camera on a British Army lorry abandoned on the seafront at Dunkirk. TOP MIDDLE: A pair of British 3.7-inch anti-aircraft guns pictured abandoned on the seafront near Dunkirk. TOP RIGHT: Having just arrived in Dunkirk, this German officer takes a moment to survey the scene that greeted him.

‘These are the French soldiers, those Frenchman, who had to cover their fellow Frenchmen at the cost of their lives and with their blood. Thousands, tens of thousands! Their uniforms torn to pieces, covered with dirt. Their faces look pale, tired from lack of sleep, their eyes seem dead and their mouths are shut in silence. Their posture shows that they no longer march as an army that simply has been defeated by a stronger adversary after a brave battle, conscious of their honour and going into imprisonment with their heads held high. No, here defeated people are marching towards their destiny without any will to live. The hell of Dunkirk had marked them forever. Their souls, and their inner strength has been broken in those days, when

the sky seemed to have fallen down on them and mother earth had shown them no mercy.’ Fred Gilbert of the 8th Battalion Royal Warwickshire Regiment, who failed to reach the ships, also saw many of these French troops marching sullenly into captivity: ‘The whole French army seemed to be marching past. They were prisoners. This endless column – four abreast – seemed to be going past from dawn to dusk, there were thousands of them. They were carrying food, all with their full kit. They were all clean and tidy … Then I looked at our boys with their torn, blood stained battledress, unshaven and hungry, no equipment, nothing, all of them wounded, some of them incomplete. They had given their all to try and save France. It made me so sad and, in a way, bitter.’

BELOW: A Junkers Ju 52 overflies the beach to the east of Dunkirk after the end of Operation Dynamo. The beached vessel in the foreground is the tug Fossa which was abandoned during the evacuation.

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THOSE THAT WERE LEFT BEHIND

It was not only French soldiers that were rounded up and taken prisoner in large number. Many thousands of British troops were also left behind, including Private Bill Holmes of the 4th Battalion Royal Sussex Regiment: ‘Everyone was trying to get away but it was impossible. I was lucky, I was unwounded, but there were men with broken legs and all kinds of wounds. I was frightened because I thought we were going to die. I expected to be lined up against a wall and shot. Most of us thought the same. We knew the Germans didn’t care about what they were doing. It played hell with your nerves.’ Lance-Corporal Eric Reeves with the 2/5th Battalion Queen’s Regiment, experienced the same anxiety: ‘You didn’t expect to be taken prisoner.

THE SILENT SOUND OF DEFEAT The Aftermath of Dunkirk

ABOVE: German troops on the beach at Malo-les-Bains are pictured having gathered at a British foxhole, still with its Union flag still flying, soon after the fall of Dunkirk. The wreck of the French destroyer L'Adroit, which was bombed and sunk by German Heinkel He 111 bombers in shallow water off Dunkirk at 12.00 hours on 21 May 1940, can be seen in the background.

It was not only men that were left behind. Almost every piece of equipment carried to war by the BEF, other than small arms, was abandoned. In France were 2,472 guns, 20,000 motorcycles, and almost 65,000 other vehicles; also abandoned were between 300,000 and 400,000 tons of stores, and more than 68,000 tons of ammunition. Virtually every one of the 445 British tanks that had been sent to France with the BEF were abandoned. 

It went through your mind that you might be killed or you might be wounded. But being captured never came into the equation. The first thing that went through your mind was fear – we’d all heard about the SS. All the time you’re thinking, “What’s going to happen next?” Then next I felt humiliated, I thought “What a waste of time!” I’d not even fired a shot. I was ashamed. I felt indignation – somebody had let me down or I’d let someone down. You don’t know what’s what. What made it worse was we’d gone out there thinking we were invincible.’ As Fred Gilbert had commented, many of those that failed to reach the ships were wounded, some severely. One such was Private Bert Evans of

the 2nd Battalion Royal Warwickshire Regiment, who was taken to a German dressing station: ‘This medical man had put his overcoat on me, and an officer at the dressing station practically tore the coat off, until he saw the state of me, and then he apologised. A German doctor said, “I’m afraid you’ll have to lose your arm, my son.” He spoke English quite well. The whole of the bone was missing, and the bottom part of the forearm, and they put maggots into it because I had blood poisoning. When they took the dressing off the next morning, the maggots had sucked out all the yellow pus, and the wound was absolutely blood-red clean. I had the arm removed at Boulogne Hospital, under candlelight.’

LEFT: Oberleutnant Braumann took this picture of a member of his unit in turn photographing the debris on the beach at Dunkirk. His original caption stated: ‘Overlooking the destroyed fleet at Dunkirk; in the background is the burning harbour.’

ABOVE: Fires were still burning when this German despatch rider made his way through the dock area at Dunkirk.

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THE SILENT SOUND OF DEFEAT The Aftermath of Dunkirk BOTTOM: A number of abandoned British Mk.VI Light Tanks on the beach between Maloles-Bains and Dunkirk itself. The wreck in the background is, once again, that of the French destroyer L'Adroit. BELOW & RIGHT: The report written by Oberleutnant Braumann which he submitted to his commanding officer.

THE DETRITUS OF WAR

This abandoned equipment was left not just in Dunkirk but along a long trail on the roads leading to the port, as Oberleutnant Braumann saw: ‘We are turning south and cross the Canal de la Colme. I look towards the right and I am trying in vain to count the fat, swollen horse bodies that are lying around as if planted on a meadow and are being bemoaned by those animals which are still alive. ‘Suddenly the vehicle stopped. The road is closed. We must get out of the vehicle and explore a way through the village by foot. Is there a village left at all, we wonder, based on what we see in front of us, in between burnt wreckage and smouldering debris? We catch our breath. This is bloodcurdling! We see street after street smashed up, broken, destroyed by the bombs,

burnt out, demolished. Not a single sound can be heard. ‘Without a word we pass through this expanse of rubble. In silence a few people skulk through the scant remainders of their former village, having spent days hidden in cellars. They can hardly recognise the streets where they once lived, barely distinguish their houses. In front of us lies a blocked street, densely covered with discarded French and English munitions of various kinds, shot and burned out limousines, vans, radios and equipment, cars, in between a range of tanks. Many of the vehicles have been thrown through the air by our very heavy bombardment from the sky above. The vehicles are perforated from the heavy machine-guns, torn apart by the grenades, lying around upside down with the wheels in the air, burnt and shredded.

‘Painstakingly we cut ourselves a way through. I am standing in front of an elegant English limousine. The broken glass is lying scattered around, partly inside, partly on the ground. This limousine had undoubtedly belonged to a very high ranking English staff officer, because it still contained maps of Belgium and France, as well as recently-dated written orders. In a hurried escape, the vehicle had been deserted by its passengers; discarded clothes and pieces of equipment seen scattered around bear witness to that, especially the uniform of the driver left behind in all haste, which still contained his wallet with military pass and the worn-out picture of a woman and a little girl, which under different circumstances, he would have certainly never left behind. I wonder whether he ever made it to the English coast.’

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ABOVE: Another of the improvised piers after the end of Operation Dynamo – this particular example was at De Panne. The building on the right can still be seen on the seafront today. Note the wooden planks that can just be seen on the top of the vehicles nearest the camera and which, stretching the length of most of the pier, acted as a walkway to those using the structure.

THE SMELL OF THE DEAD

‘We continue our journey,’ recalled Braumann. ‘The smoke cloud on the horizon is getting closer and closer but with it also comes the smell of burnt material and of dead bodies. We walk past a machine-gun post and turn into a street, on both sides of which sits a prison camp with over 40,000 French. It is incomprehensible how the guards can bear the overwhelming cadaver stench, because the whole street is covered in dead bodies of the enemy; most of the soldiers were from the French colonies. In order to move forward we must drive over the dead bodies. We also throw a quick glance into the camp and we could see a French General surrounded by his staff officers. He sits at the table crestfallen, holding his head with both hands. The captured lie around exhausted, motionless and apathetic. ‘The far perimeter of the prison camp is defined by a canal which we cross

and reach the city boundaries of Dunkirk. Here spreads out a battlefield furrowed by shells and bombs. Amongst the dead the black soldiers with their long bush knifes particularly stand out. Appalled we turn away from those horrible images in order to go through Dunkirk. However, given that Dunkirk itself is a vast expanse of rubble full of barricades and collapsed, still burning houses, we are forced to make a detour past the harbour filled with oil tanks that are standing in flames, and also filled with bombed ships and railway carriages, to reach the beach. ‘At the beach we are met with an unprecedented sight: the English have aligned vehicle after vehicle to form a single runway, by driving them into the sea and placing planks over their roofs. On this wobbly bridge they tried to escape the murderous attacks by the German Stukas and to maybe reach salvation on a ship. The

many wrecks of bombarded transport ships protruding from the sea and the myriad of dead bodies floating in thick oil slicks and washed ashore are proof that not many fugitives have been successful. Was the driver whose uniform we found earlier in the car amongst them? ‘We encounter a terrible mess in the hotels where the English have dwelt. Most roofs have been blown away by the German bomb blasts. In the few intact rooms where our enemies had lived, we still find the remains of recently half-eaten meals. The walls are decorated with musical instruments like saxophones etc. of the bandsmen; we are greeted by tail-wagging dogs left behind by their masters; hockey and tennis rackets as well as champagne and wine bottles left behind testify what kind of “promenade to Berlin” the English officers had planned to lead. 

ABOVE LEFT: German personnel examine the remains of one of the improvised piers constructed using a motley collection of abandoned vehicles on the beaches near Dunkirk. ABOVE RIGHT: German soldiers are pictured on the tug Fossa. She was abandoned on the stretch of beach east of Dunkirk after suffering a direct hit on 2 June.

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THE SILENT SOUND OF DEFEAT The Aftermath of Dunkirk

TOP: A pair of British Mk.VI Light Tanks abandoned on the beach at Dunkirk. Note the Bren Gun in the foreground, and the tug in the background. ABOVE: Another view of the French destroyer L'Adroit which had been attacked by a force of Heinkel He 111s.

‘We are keen to leave this place of terror. We are throwing a last glance back on the beach covered with debris and cadavers; which has to be put to the account of the English (and French) governance. In the dunes in the direction La Panne almost every mound is marked with a white flag. Here it is equally difficult to move forward given the war debris scattered around; in between we still find positioned anti-aircraft guns, ammunition piles and clusters of machine-guns in firing position. From time to time we had to stop to chase hundreds of ownerless horses off the road. Only east of La Panne in the direction of Nieuport do the traces of the battlefield wear off. But the enduring impression left by

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the stench of death and by the horrible images we have seen, cannot be erased even by the fresh north wind that we breathe in the famous Spa Ostende.’ Oberleutnant Braumann would never forget the scenes of the summer of 1940. Terrible though the sights and sounds were to him, at least on that day he could view his surroundings as a member of a proud and victorious army that considered the war to have been won. It was very different for those in the British army, as Eric Reeves recalled as he and his fellow captives were being marched away: ‘We didn’t know where we were going. It seemed it was all over … So we thought the war was finished. It was completely dispiriting. And the Germans loved to tell us we would never go home. They said we would have to stay in Germany and work for them forever.’  BELOW: One of the ‘Little Ships’ that never returned. Alongside Bren gun carriers and, in the distance lorries, the sailing barge Barbara Jean is pictured here lying abandoned on the beach at Dunkirk.

IMAGE OF WAR

CANAL-DU-NORD, FRANCE 27 September 1918

German mortars captured during the Canal du Nord offensive. One of the mortars has been marked by the 4th Canadian Infantry Battalion, which captured it on 27 September 1918. Units typically chalked captured guns, mortars, and machine-guns as signs of their prowess and victories. The mortar in the foreground with the soldier is a 7.58cm Minenwerfer; the mortar in the background (also chalked 4th Battalion) is a 17cm Minenwerfer 1913 short model. (COURTESY OF THE LIBRARY AND ARCHIVE OF CANADA)

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I

MMORTALISED BY the classic 1956 film Yangste Incident, starring Richard Todd, the story of HMS Amethyst is well remembered. Attempting the relieve the British embassy at Nanking in April 1949, the warship was trapped in the Yangste River and laid siege to by Maoist communist forces for three months. Four years later, the Australian frigate HMAS Murchison found itself in a similarly harrowing situation during the Korean War, serving briefly alongside the Amethyst. In June 1950 North Korea invaded the South, capturing Seoul with ease, and pushing all opposition aside in an advance towards Pusan. Australian contributions began arriving in September and quickly engaged. Soon, the United Nations force won a series of stunning reversals. The Communists retreated back across the border as the UN made headway towards the Yalu River, the Chinese border. China mobilised, rushing multiple divisions into the theatre and by November, the frontline was back on the 38th Parallel. In April 1951, China launched a new offensive, vast numbers of troops attempted to storm UN positions. The latter mostly held, and the line stabilised. The Royal Australian Navy deployed the frigate HMAS Shoalhaven, and the

destroyer Bataan, by late July 1950, the destroyer Warramunga also deployed, supporting the landing of US X Corps. Warramunga was later joined by Bataan to evacuate Hungnam. The aircraft carrier HMAS Sydney arrived in October 1951, carrying Hawker Sea Furies and Fairey Fireflies, she conducted 2,700 sorties in three months, with a low loss rate of three pilots and nine aircraft.

PROBING THE HAN RIVER

Perhaps the most admirable feats of the Australian contribution were those of HMAS Murchison in September 1951, operating 30 miles (48km) up the Han River. The frigate was commanded by Lt-Cdr Allen Dollard, a long-serving and experienced officer who had seen much wartime service. His crew were also largely veterans. Murchison was both one of 12 frigates built in Australia during World War Two and one of four Bay-class frigates to serve in the Royal Australian Navy. Named after Australian rivers, the ships were modified British vessels. Entering service in late 1945, Murchison missed the war, but was immediately put to use supporting the War Graves Commission before serving in Japan. She then engaged in training duties until May 1951. The ship was not supposed to be in Korean waters, only present because

of the shortage of destroyers within the RAN. As Dollard implied in interview, what could the American’s expect from a “paltry frigate”? Once it was realised frigates such as the Murchison could penetrate inshore waters, despite having, in Dollard’s words, “No basic principles on what our role in Korea should be”, it turned out they expected an awful lot. In the words of Dollard: “See, the four frigates [Murchison, Shoalhaven, Condamine, Culgoa] were primarily gunnery frigates, the [others] were primarily anti-submarine, so clearly the gunnery frigates were most desired… We had four 4in guns in two turrets and that was a very effective armament.” Murchison arrived in Korea after a stop in Sasebo. The Japanese city and its naval base had become the main launching point for the UN. Large numbers of troops and vehicles, and millions of tons of supplies flowed through Sasebo. The number of Americans there grew to about 20,000, and the many visiting vessels further swelled the foreign population. Plagued by mechanical problems, Murchison’s recent refit had been rushed. “We were going back to Nelson’s age”, said Dollard. “We were steaming by hand, we were pumping [fuel] by hand, and we were making four knots in 

MAIN IMAGE: HMAS Condamine (front) and HMAS Murchison, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia, February 22, 1955.

(COURTESY OF

THE PROFESSOR CYRIL RENWICK ARCHIVES, UNIVERSITY OF NEWCASTLE (AUSTRALIA))

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Australian frigate HMAS Murchison proudly took on the nickname ‘Baron of the Han’ while bombarding communist forces during the Korean War. John Ash recounts its exploits. www.britainatwar.com 79

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Nations forces… This was the American belief. The British belief, headed by Admiral Scott Moncrieff, that there was a danger of losing ships in the falling tides and being stranded on mud flats for a very doubtful purpose”. The river had not been charted; the currents were swift and rough, and the waters shallow. The first attempts to enter the Han on the night of June 25 resulted in failure. The ships got lost and Cardigan Bay ran aground three times. Guided by aircraft from HMAS Sydney, they retreated to the original anchorage, and were joined by HMS Morecambe Bay and several South Korean JML craft (former Japanese auxiliary submarine chasers, launches armed with a single gun and sonar). The following day, the entire group, successfully entered the Han, anchoring

ABOVE: The British light cruiser HMS Belfast, photographed in icy seas from the Tribalclass destroyer HMAS Bataan in December 1950. RIGHT: One of the photographs taken by Dollard in Han Estuary. Depicted is the Starboard view of HMAS Murchison while patrolling the Han. BELOW: HMAS Murchison at South Wharf in Melbourne, September 16 1946.

heavy seas.” A proper repair was completed in Sasebo. Operating off the Yalu River on July 24, Murchison first saw action, bombarding armour near Choda Island. Together with HMS Cardigan Bay and South Korean frigate ROKS Apnokkang, Murchison sailed into the Han River to survey and probe, She would gauge how navigable the waterway was, and display the unrivalled power the Allies had at sea. As Dollard describes: “The war had stabilised around the 38th Parallel, Kaesong was just south of that. We were required to get up within range of Kaesong for the main purpose - the American belief was to bring harassing bombardment to bear around the outskirts of Kaesong, while the peace talks were in progress, to emphasise the power of the United

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30 miles upriver at a place they named ’Fork’, west of Gyodong-do island, barely a kilometre from today’s border. From this location, the 19,850 yard (18,150m) range and high rate of fire put the 4in guns of the force in a prominent position. Bow, ‘A’ turret gunner, Stephen Joyce, remembered: “When the first peace talks started at Kaesong, we ringed Kaesong on the hour - I think it was four rounds on the hour - just to remind the Chinese and the North Koreans that they were in distance of our guns.”

SMALL ARMS BARRAGE

The group stayed in the area until August 4, firing on targets such as shore defences, supply dumps, troop concentrations and armour. The shelling was almost continuous, with the heavy

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shells of the frigates slamming into Communist targets, guided by aircraft from the carrier HMS Theseus (or her relief, USS Sicily). While these fire missions were underway, Murchison was busy using her boats, along with the JMLs, to survey the river and a new western anchorage was found, named ‘Knife’, with ‘Knife Edge’ slightly further on. They also identified and cleared a navigable channel, which they named ‘Lambeth’. Sailing through Lambeth to the Knife was described by Dollard

were raked by 40mm Bofors guns until the firing ceased. Soon after, shells began to fall near the ship and a tank was seen to leave the area along with a supporting truck. These were engaged by the Murchison, and both sustained direct hits from the 4in guns. The ship was delighted with the unusual ‘kill’: “We found ourselves being targeted by tank guns, and we sighted a tank and escort on the hills and we engaged that and destroyed it, so that cheered the crew up - me too.

It was a Russian T-34 tank, which was quite unusual for a tank and a frigate to exchange fire. But morale from then on was very high.’ Later that day, two junks were halted. The boarding party got a shock when they found that the junks contained 12 heavily armed men and land mines. Upon interrogation, they proved to be South Korean guerrillas aiming to land that night. They were provided with fire support. Dollard reflected on the benefit of guerrilla efforts: ‘We and other ships continued our series of bombardments and we had lots of intelligence provided to us by ROK guerrilla groups who were very brave… They provided us with targets, so we would go off to ‘Knife Edge’ and bombard a series of targets, including the railway concentration and reports came back of very effective results.’ The last eight days of July saw the ship’s guns firing daily, expending 1,000 rounds of 4in and 1,000 rounds of 40mm ammunition. By then, the ship’s gun and fire control parties were very proficient. On the night 

ABOVE: HMAS Murchison in harbour. BELOW LEFT: US Marine Corps Vought F4U-4 Corsairs, Marine Fighter Squadron VMF-323, lined up on the flight deck of the escort carrier USS Sicily in waters off Sasebo, Japan. BELOW: HMS Cardigan Bay 1945.

as hair-raising, as the anchorage was within range of enemy fire. Other channels, even closer to shore, were named ‘Pall Mall’ and ‘Sickle’, each extending the reach of the ship's guns, but increasing vulnerability. Murchison reached as far as the Ryesong River, the closest point yet to Kaesong. The ships were engaged by snipers and machine-guns on a daily basis. On July 24, Murchison had come under a particularly heavy barrage of small arms fire while rounding Gorinchiki Point. Although no targets were spotted the likely enemy positions www.britainatwar.com 81

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FREQUENT PRESENCE

Her brief visit to Japan complete, Murchison met with HMS Kenya, confidential documents were transferred and she returned to the Han on August 10. The next day, ROKS Taebaeksan came under heavy machine-gun fire from the north shore, which Murchison silenced. She continued to engage targets in support of UN troops in the area. With ammunition dwindling, the ship’s 4in guns were limited to 50 rounds a day, although certain tasks, again to the delight of the crew, were allocated an extra 50 rounds. Murchison was a frequent presence on the Han, the ship spent longer in the river than any of the other frigates despite continuously needing to leave to resupply and refuel. From August 17 to 24, she spent her time manoeuvring to avoid Typhoon Marge while on route to Japan to resupply, only returning to the Han on the 31st. ABOVE: Extreme cold. The ice on Battle-class destroyer HMAS Anzac when she was sailing off the North Korean coast in October 1952. RIGHT: Two of Murchison Bofors gunners enjoy some down time while anchored at Fork Anchorage.

BELOW: Murchison’s Hedgehog antisubmarine mortar.

of August 3, Murchison berthed at ‘Knife’ anchorage, and was subjected to a barrage of fire from the shore. The frigate retaliated with Bofors guns, to which her crews, according to Dollard, were “elated to be given a target”. Early on the 4th, Murchison left for Sasebo, escorting the Royal Fleet Auxiliary (RFA) Wave Chief and meeting HMS Ceylon.. The frigate HMS Mounts Bay remained on station and was attacked by jet aircraft but sustained no damage. Three days later, Murchison met with RFA Fort Charlotte and replenished at sea, embarking 850 rounds of 4in shells and 3,500 40mm shells.

Korean weather was often inhospitable, and if it was not the storms, it was the extreme hot and cold. The weather could pose difficulties: “We were not well equipped for the later cold weather. It really was very, very cold. Our ships were not insulated; we weren’t built for cold-weather operations. The British ships, including their frigates, were built for this… We weren’t, we were built for the tropics and there’s nothing you could do.” Dollard continued: “But as for keeping the guns and the equipment going in the cold weather, it was constant grease and steam hosing... Leave it for half an hour and the breach would seize up, and of course, the crew also had great trouble with skin contact with metal equipment.” 82 www.britainatwar.com

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On September 3, the ship met with HMS Belfast. Captain Sir Aubrey St Clair-Ford, and Chief Staff Officer to the Flag Officer, Captain R A Villiers, boarded to inspect the Han and transfer to Cardigan Bay. Remaining upriver until 10 September, Murchison engaged numerous targets in support of UN troops. By the end of this patrol, she expended her ammunition quota and again retired to Sasebo.

SITTING DUCK

Murchison’s fourth patrol in the Han began on September 17, the first 11 days were largely routine. She met with the New Zealand frigate HMNZS Hawea off Sara Somu Island and transferred documents. At Fork anchorage, with considerable irony Murchison was placed under control of HMS Amethyst. On the 21st a seriously wounded South Korean guerrilla was brought aboard and a lifesaving operation was performed before airlifting to Inchon. Despite the lull in action, Dollard reported that morale within the ship’s company was high, despite dramatically losing a rugby match to the crew of Belfast. Amethyst hosted a conference with Rear Admiral Moncrieff on September 21, and Murchison was again given the task of embarking officers from Sara Somu and transporting them upriver. Murchison, with HM Ships, ROKS vessels, and others rotating in and out of the river were discovering that even with proper surveys, the Han was

hard to navigate. The 30ft (9m) tidal range vast and there was a real danger of becoming trapped. However they continued to operate there, having been selected for good draft and competitive firepower. Resistance to the warships presence had, in general, been light and Murchison had sustained only minor damage. The continual firing of the aft 4in turret caused a minor steering defect, while enemy fire damaged pipes, ventilation, and her Hedgehog mortar. However, if a ship could be engaged for long enough for it to become beached, it would be a sitting duck, Dollard reflected: “When you are plotting movements through the channels you must have a diagram of the rise and fall of tide. You must only go when you’ve got enough water

and do it on a rising tide so that if you do get on the mud you still have a bit of rising tide to get you off. If you wait until the tide is falling, well, obviously, if you touch the mud you are history and you’d be shot to bits. “So we always had two hours on the top of the tide, before it turned, to do these exercises. So we’d go out, bombard, and then we went back through the channels as the tide was still rising. When the tide had fallen it was just mud with gutters...We’d have only about 15ft of water under us… 15ft of water with a draft of 12 or 13ft, we didn’t have much to spare.” Murchison did not have specialist navigators, but Lt Jim ‘Ned’ Kelly, the ship’s navigator, was awarded the DSC for his work. 

ABOVE: Another moment captured by the captain’s camera, one of Murchison’s gun crews operate one of her two 4-inch gun turrets. The guns have just fired, the spent cases being ejected from the smoking breeches, with the loaders stood by cradling the next pair of rounds. BELOW: HMS Kenya underway at sea.

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WITHOUT A PADDLE Korean War River Battle

there was no way of directing from the rangefinder because of the short range - there were open sights and guns firing at targets of opportunity in independent control.” The unsuspected batteries of 75mm guns and 50mm mortars accompanied with small arms opened fire in what was the sharpest and heaviest attack on the ships operating in the river. Dollard reflected on the ship’s luck: “Most of the shells went through the ship, in one side and out the other, because they were using armourpiercing [shells], fortunately they went through the mess decks which weren’t occupied because hands were all at action stations... But we had a lot of upper deck damage and Bofors guns put out of action, minor flesh wounds, and off we went and we eventually had to anchor when a rainstorm came - there was no way of negotiating these channels without visibility, without visual observation of buoys we had placed, and this rain squall came straight down upon us and totally blocked out all vision beyond a few feet… ABOVE: The stern of the Murchison, Murchison far left, and the Tacomaclass frigates ARC Almirante Padilla (Colombian), USS Gloucester and ROKS Taedong, moored alongside the Vulcan-class repair ship USS Jason inside the Han River in January 1952.

OUT OF THE FRYING PAN

On September 28 Murchison embarked the commander of Task Force 95: “I was required to go down the channel out to open water to meet Admiral Dyer, who was our boss, our immediate superior. The American admirals were very keen on bombardment around Kaesong and they wanted to see it happening. So I took them out, first of all, to ‘Knife Edge’ which is the most westerly point where we could bombard Yonan.” Dollard continued: “We did a very effective bombardment there with air spotting.” At 16:00 hours, Murchison was underway along the northern bank

ABOVE RIGHT: The Murchison crosses astern of sister ship Culgoa off Jervis Bay, conducting anti-submarine exercises. RIGHT: Captain Allen Dollard, commanding officer of HMAS Murchison.

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after sailing back into the Han when she came under fire from newlyestablished Chinese batteries. “We anchored, as one must because there’s no room to turn, other than on an anchor, then having completed our turn we came under heavy fire for the first time. We had occasional fire previously, but this was heavy fire from concealed guns in farm houses, antitank guns, and we even had bazookas and 0.5 machine-guns. We also could see, because from time to time we were within 200 yards of the shore, riflemen shooting from amongst the reeds. “Admiral Dyer and Captain Norfolk were there, seeing for themselves first-hand what was happening - I had nothing to do with them, I was busy doing what I was doing, and so were the rest of the ship’s company. We opened fire with all weapons -

“Fortunately, the other side of the coin was, we were invisible too… As soon as that passed… as quick as we could… we got the anchor up and the gunnery from both sides started again. We headed off and eventually returned to our position at the ‘Fork’… and by later reports, having destroyed most of the weapons that attacked us.” All the while, the ship’s crew were trying to establish depth and set a course: “In shallow waters the leadsman heaves the lead, hauls it taut, and as it goes underneath him he measures the depth of the water… I heard amongst the rattle of the guns and everything else this chanting of the leadsman - I was taking no notice of that because you didn’t have time to stop and wonder what it was. They were doing a very gallant job, working away there, outside the ship…

WITHOUT A PADDLE

Korean War River Battle

“I stuck my head over the side and shouted out, ‘Lay in the lead and take cover’… they took cover in the Hedgehog magazine… little did they think, perhaps, that they were then sitting on about two tons of very volatile Hedgehog ammunition. So they might have been out of the frying pan into the fire”.

CLOSE RANGE

Rather than withdraw, the Chinese were quick to bolster their batteries, and waited for Murchison to return. On September 30, she did. The Chinese gunners opened fire with more heavy guns at a closer range. Dollard described the battle: “On September 30 Rotoiti, a New Zealand frigate commanded by [Lt-Cdr] Brian Turner, arrived to replace us, Brian came over with his navigator and we decided we’d do a run and show him the ropes. They came on board and we went off to repeat the run, but this time, we were more than ready to engage. And certainly it happened.” The concentrated fire further damaged the frigate. As she battled

both the Chinese guns and the fast flowing tide, Murchison tried to manoeuvre, her gunners again firing over open sights. 20mm Oerlikon cannon and small arms were used in conjunction with Bofors. The main guns fired up to 20 rounds a minute. Dollard continued: “We turned again, swung to the anchor. The same matters occurred - heavy fire from farm houses, we targeted the farm houses and destroyed the guns in them. We got intelligence back from the guerrilla groups... On one occasion a shell went straight into a bunker, in which 40 men had taken refuge… That was one of those lucky, or unlucky, flukes... Within a bunker you can imagine the compression destroyed anybody who happened to be there.” Although the 4in guns and Bofors

were knocking out Chinese positions, the firing was unending although their accuracy and fire rate became rather desultory. Nevertheless, Murchison was forced to withdraw upriver, it would seem that she, at least for now, had become trapped in the Han. Other frigates soon arrived, timing their advance with another push from Murchison. The Chinese batteries opened up again with renewed enthusiasm, but were silenced by fire. Murchison expended 276 shells, and over 500 rounds from her Bofors, well above her quota, but she had been freed. Murchison’s aft - or ‘X’ - turret crew broke their speed record – 21 rounds per minute per gun, 42 for the turret. Gunner Stephen Joyce said: “That’s only ever been exceeded by the Amethyst up the Yangtze River - 43 rounds.” 

BELOW: HMAS Murchison photographed from the port bow of sister ship HMAS Culgoa while on exercise off Jervis Bay, Australia.

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WITHOUT A PADDLE Korean War River Battle RIGHT: Lieutenant W O C Roberts, HMAS Murchison’s Executive Officer, points out the hole punched through the steel door to her engine room. The damaged was caused by a Chinese antitank shell on September 30. Several armour piercing shells penetrated the hull and a 75mm shell exploded in the engine room without causing any serious damage. RIGHT: HMAS Murchison underway.

BOTTOM: HMAS Murchison in October 1954.

rescue of downed B-29 Superfortress crews. Once, on October 22, risking shallow waters and mines to pick up co-pilot Lt Biessner, Murchison was operating in waters less than a fathom deep and was guided out the next day by aircraft from the carrier Sydney. Vulnerabilities to Chinese guns confirmed, the long allied presence in the Han began to wind down. Despite this Murchison and other ships returned to the estuary multiple times. On November 1, she shelled Amgak Peninsula, landing her own spotters, and on January 24, 1952, Murchison returned from Hong Kong and met with Belfast to take command of the unit. Murchison left the Han for the last time on January 28, but not before shelling 13 targets marked by guerrillas. As a last The incoming fire was accurate. As attacked Murchison had been hit. hurrah, the gun crews expended 150 Joyce remembered: “Gordon Robins, he At 16:00, Murchison expended the 4in rounds. Murchison did not return was on X Gun. He bent over to pick up last of her ammunition, weighed until after the ceasefire. She fired 6,000 another 4in round, and a bullet creased anchor and left for Sasebo. One of 4in shells in the Han, having to change his tin hat... He was a very lucky man. the wounded, Able Seaman Garnett, barrels in the estuary. “Another chap standing there with deteriorated considerably and the For a long while, UN ships operated this 4in round, cradled in his arms, and decision was made to call in at Inchon in the same constrained location, a rifle bullet hit the casing and opened and disembark him. He later recovered. rotating in and out with ease and it up - he must have had a bruised At 09:00 on October 3, Murchison pulled professionalism, rapidly picking up belly afterwards, I’m sure - and all the up alongside HMS Concord, she was inherited roles. While HMAS Murchison cordite started to spill out onto the refuelled and then hurried to Kure's dry endured an unusual confrontation, and deck. So in his panic, in his fright, I dock for repair. earned the titled the ‘Baron of the Han’ think I would have done the same Within a week, she’d sail again, soon from Rear Admiral Moncrieff, each straight over the side.” returning to service. Murchison's heroics ship involved in the daring operation Murchison sustained heavy damage, were not confined to the Han, as later provided valued fire support and that month, she twice rushed to the but nothing too significant. As Joyce harassed Communist forces.  reflected: “They put seven holes along our waterline, they just used the wrong rounds, for our luck.” Murchison had taken four wounded, with one severe but stable. She avoided running aground, so a repeat of what befell Amethyst was averted.

FURTHER HEROICS

Next day, Murchison returned with Rotoiti and conducted a day-long bombardment of the Chinese positions, with aircraft also striking the emplacements. The ship’s records note that the four batteries known to have

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80th Anniversary

CELEBRATING BRITAIN’S GREATEST FIGHTER

On March 5, 1936 test pilot ‘Mutt’ Summers put the throttle of a sleek prototype fighter forward and it leapt into the air. He came back clearly delighted, telling the crowd of onlookers: “I don’t want anything touched!” The iconic Supermarine Spitfire was born and ready to face the full might of the Luftwaffe just four years later. More than 22,000 of many variants followed. In this 80th anniversary year, the publishers of FlyPast magazine present a special 100-page tribute to Britain’s greatest fighter and possibly the best known combat aircraft in the world. Using extensive archive images, the best of aviation writers and researchers salute the Spitfire’s incredible heritage Renowned air-to-air photographer John Dibbs presents a stunning portfolio of present-day Spitfires in their element: from the day fighter Mk.I to the high-flying Mk.XIX and the wing-folding Seafires. All of this adds up to a superb souvenir of a world famous fighter.

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WAR MEMORIALS TRUST Ashbury Memorial

Ashbury



MEMORIAL

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SHBURY IS one of those places that moved counties in the 1970s. Historically in Berkshire, it is now in Oxfordshire. The memorial in the centre of the village features twenty names from the Great War and six from the Second World War. Much later a stone was placed on the memorial commemorating one soldier who served in the Falklands War in 1982. There is no surprise that a local regiment figures prominently. Princess Charlotte of Wales’s (Royal Berkshire Regiment), as it was known at the time of the First World War, is given its full title on the memorial. Among those recorded, for example, is Private Edward Cross, serving with the Second Battalion, when he was killed in action at the Battle of Langemarck, part of the third Battle of Ypres, on August 16 1917. Private Cross was twenty nine, the son of Thomas and Charlotte Cross, had served in India and is buried in Buttes New British Cemetery, Polygon Wood. At Buttes, opened after the Armistice, there are 2,108 Commonwealth burials or commemorations from the First World War. Another of those who died with the Royal Berkshire Regiment was

Private John Sidney Manners of the 8th (Service) Battalion, aged 20, who was killed during the Battle of Loos, at the Hohenzollern Redoubt. With no known grave, he is remembered on the Loos Memorial. Only one officer from the Great War appears on the Ashbury memorial. Lieutenant Colonel the Hon Lawrence Charles Walter Palk, DSO, second son of the second Lord Haldon, a title which became extinct in 1939. The website, theygavetheirtoday.com notes that L C W Palk had attended Wellington College, but had served in the ranks of the 8th Hussars for four years before being commissioned into the Hampshire Regiment. He served in the South African war and was in India when war broke out in 1914. He was killed in action on 1 July 1916, while commanding the first battalion at the opening of the Battle of the Somme, during the attack on Beaumont Hamel. He was forty five and rests in Sucrerie Military Cemetery, Colincamps. Remembered at Ashbury from the Falklands War is Lance Corporal Peter David Higgs, the third Battalion, the Parachute Regiment, killed on Mount Longdon on 12 June 1982 and buried at Tidworth Military Cemetery.

Britain at War is collaborating with War Memorials Trust in a series of articles. War Memorials Trust works for the protection and conservation of war memorials in the UK and provides advice and information as well as running grant schemes for the repair and conservation of war memorials. The WMT are a registered charity relying entirely on voluntary contributions to undertake our work. www.warmemorials.org Email: [email protected] www.britainatwar.com 89

ART OF PERSUASION Remember Scarborough

ATROCITY INSPIRES ENLISTMENT In the second of our regular series looking at poster campaigns of the two World Wars Phil Jarman focuses on the recruitment drive following the bombardment of British coastal towns in 1914.

ABOVE: Evidence of the result of the bombardment of innocent civilians on home soil for the first time during the First World War, blast damaged Scarborough. MAIN PICTURE: A reproduction of an original painting by Edith Kemp-Welch, combined with a simple and emotive typographic message, Remember Scarborough.

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HE MORNING of December 16 1914 became firmly etched into the memories of the inhabitants of the North East Coastal towns of Hartlepool, Scarborough and Whitby. Steaming close to shore on that fateful day, a German Naval battle group bombarded the highly popular resorts and harbours to bring the war to the Home Front with a sudden and deathly blow. In total, 137 people lost their lives and 592 were wounded. Serious damage to property was inflicted as hundreds of shells rained down. Over 500 shells fell on Scarborough alone. In the popular seaside resort and working harbour a total of 17 people were killed, two later from wounds and over 100 people injured. Over 200 buildings were damaged including seven churches and five hotels. As one of the first seaside resorts in Britain, Scarborough played host to day-trippers and holidaymakers from inland Yorkshire and the North. Inevitably, the raid was regarded as an atrocity as innocent victims were

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targeted on home shores for the first time in the conflict. In response to the destruction, romantic artist Edith Kemp-Welch (1870-1941) created an emotive painting depicting Britannia rising defiantly from the burning rubble of Scarborough, waving a sword, and being spurred on by a crowd of men, waving their caps and rising up in revolt. One of two artistic sisters, prior to the First World War Edith painted romantic seascapes, images of Scottish moors and mountains, as well as figurative compositions and still life. Older sister Lucy, a highly regarded equestrian painter, went on to illustrate the 1915 edition of Black Beauty written by Anna Sewell. Lucy also created highly charged paintings of horses employed to tow guns, munitions and cavalry. Some sources suggest it was Lucy rather than Edith who created the painting used in the Scarborough poster, yet the original, which is now housed in the resort’s Town Hall, is signed by Edith. In early 1915, as losses on the Western front increased, the Parliamentary Recruiting Committee used KempWelch’s painting as the basis of a poster to incite the men who in peacetime popularised the seaside resorts to step up and sign up to fight. The use of emotive images as the central feature of poster design was quite rare at this time in the history of advertising, many

publicity or promotional campaigns employed solely typographic compositions reminiscent of the billboard posters from Edwardian and Victorian theatres. Due to the advances in print technology and reproduction techniques pioneered by the French and Belgian Art Nouveau artists and designers, multi-colour images could be reproduced and distributed in their thousands. Utilising lithography rather than letterpress printing, design and composition played an increasing part in the way advertisers attracted attention to promote products, to inform, or, in the case of the PRC, to change attitudes and support the war effort. Adding the simple words: ‘Remember Scarborough, Enlist Now’ to sandwich the striking image of Britannia rousing potential recruits had a dramatic effect and saw the enlistment of thousands of men into the armed forces and particularly the working men of the Yorkshire towns and cities inland of the coastal resorts. It is considered that the use of images in the poster featured was the first time psychology was employed to manipulate opinion and create a direct response. It is estimated that over 54 million prints of over 200 different designs were used to support recruitment campaigns and other subjects during the five years of conflict.

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Fritz and Tommy

Across the Barbed Wire Peter Doyle and Robin Schäfer

Publisher: The History Press www.thehistorypress.co.uk ISBN: 978-0-7509-5684-0 Hardback: 288 pages RRP: £20.00

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WITH SO many books now emerging on the subject of the First World War it is not only difficult to imagine what new topics authors might still find to write about but also it is increasingly hard to find new works that are hard to put down. This wonderful volume not only covers new ground, but is definitely a page-turner that this reviewer found it hard to leave! The authors, Doyle and Schäfer, have skilfully woven together elements of their own special research areas; respectively, the British and German soldier of the 1914 – 18 war. Their work, well researched, engagingly written and appealingly presented on the page, makes for an utterly fascinating and compelling comparison of what it was like on either side of no-man’s-land. Unsurprisingly, perhaps, we find that the lot of the German and British soldier, Fritz and Tommy, was remarkably similar in so many respects. What is intriguing, though, is to read and compare

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the thoughts and feelings on certain topics that the two nation’s soldiers shared. This is especially so when these comparisons are presented to the reader by way of contemporaneous writings such as letters, diaries and other memoirs from those who were there on each side of the barbed wire. Very often, these jottings are made by men of both armies serving at the same time and on the same sectors. Thus, we get a glimpse of exactly how British and German soldiers were experiencing the same events but from their own national perspectives. The subjects of morale, food and the general experiences of battle could well be interchangeable from a nationality point of view although there were, of course, marked differences in some areas. For example, the German penchant for seeking out the award of an Iron Cross was the ultimate goal of many soldiers, particularly during the early days of the war. On the other hand, the British Tommy had somewhat less of any motivation to earn himself a medal. Rather, his intent was more focussed on doing his duty and surviving than on earning medals although one similarity was the wound badge worn by German soldiers and the wound stripe worn by the British. Such ‘awards’ marked the wearer

out as a front-line soldier and were understandably worn with considerable pride. Of course, the similarities in the conditions in which men served are striking; the weather, often the mud, the cold, sometimes the heat…and always the fear, the noise and ever-present death. For example, one Sergeant of the 16th Cheshire Regiment writes: ‘….. exhausted and bad cold. Snowing again for two hours. Germans explode mine and twelve killed. Water in trench up to waist. Firing heavy.’ Alone, just that snapshot of life in the trenches during 1916 paints a powerful picture, as does the account of a German Infantry Leutnant: ‘The weather is awful. Our feet are freezing, but the rest keeps warm by hard work. We are terribly dirty, but dirt keeps warm.’ Meanwhile, another German soldier wrote: ‘Dear parents and brethren, pray for me because it is frightening here.’ These, though, are just some brief glimpses into what is an altogether far more comprehensive work than is possible to adequately describe or to give credit to in this review. Overall, this is a masterful study of the cultural and military nuances that have previously been left untouched by other researchers and writers. Here we see, side by side, the two armies’ approaches

to war and their respective lives on the same front. Together, and yet as enemies, both Fritz and Tommy experienced increasing alienation from people back at home and inexorably drew closer in an odd sort of way, and despite the distance imposed by eachothers status as the foe it certainly became the case that truly very little divided the men on each side of no-man’s-land. Full circle from the hated ‘Hun’ to ‘Good old Jerry’ at the end of the war, the British soldier shared the same thoughts and fears as his opponent, and all shared a common desire to survive and for the war to end. Sadly, so many of those who are quoted most likely did not survive the horrors of the war and although they knew little of their opponents they could surely identify with all that they felt, experienced and endured. This is a book which sheds light in a most readable manner onto the shared experiences of Fritz and Tommy and is an invaluable addition to reading matter on the lives of ordinary soldiers in the conflict. Its nomination, here, as Book of the Month was never more richly deserved. REVIEWED BY ANDY SAUNDERS.

Illustrations  References/Notes Appendices  Index 



The Britain at War team scout out the latest items of interest

Battle of Britain: Combat Archive Vol 1, 10 July – 22 July 1940 Simon W Parry

THAT ANY author or publisher might find a fresh angle on the subject of the Battle of Britain is remarkable, especially when the content is simply a telling (or re-telling!) of the dayto-day events of the battle covering the losses, engagements and other significant events from the summer of 1940. Simon Parry, however, literally gives the reader an entirely new glimpse of the battle’s key events and he does so, masterfully, with a series of beautifully executed maps of specific engagements presented on a day-byday basis. Hitherto, accounts of daily actions during the battle have literally been text-based with wordy narratives describing the actions, explaining which units and squadrons flew where, and when, and detailing the related claims and losses. As such, it is always difficult to gain a mental picture of where the various elements of both sides actually were at any given time and this work gives the reader a visual representation of significant actions within the battle on a day-to-day basis. Dated and timed, the maps show the positions of units relevant to each other as well as the location of downed aircraft. Another unique feature of the book sees commissioned digital artwork by Piotr Forkasiewicz (also an occasional illustrator for this magazine) depicting specific actions and engagements. Such is the detail of this artwork that it is hard not to believe that some of them are not, in fact, remarkable colour photographs of the actual events! Simon Parry has also presented us with a detailed loss listing of aircraft and aircrews from both sides, and throughout the course of the series of books will be drawing on newly released RAF casualty files (see Britain at War news feature, January

2016) to supplement the facts with information newly in the public domain. Additionally, a range of colour aircraft profiles and contemporary black and white images help to complete what is the start of a very useful series of books. Whilst the volumes are not likely to re-tell the actual narrative story of the Battle of Britain in any 'new' way, per se, they will present newly found facts or correct some misconceptions on the battle's conduct as well as adding in new nuggets of information where the author has come across them. Additionally, the pages are also scattered with portrait images of the participants, both RAF and Luftwaffe. Ultimately covering the entire period of the battle, the real value of this series of books will be in their stunning visual representations of the battle – from detailed maps through to artwork of the actual battles. A must-have for anyone with even just a passing interest in the Battle of Britain! Publisher: Red Kite www.wingleader.co.uk ISBN: 978-1-906592-28-8 Softback: 128 pages RRP: £25.00

The Home Guard Companion      Edited by Campbell McCutcheon

THOSE WHO might feel inclined to check out the accuracy of uniform, equipment, procedures, drill etc. insofar as it applies to the ‘Home Guard’ of the Walmington-on-Sea Platoon in the new ‘Dad’s Army’ film would find the newly re-printed 1941 Home Guard Companion a useful guide! Almost a straight re-print of the original wartime publication, this version also had a preamble which sets out the history of the Home Guard and its organisation whilst a supplement at the back of the book looks at aspects of wartime Home Guard humour, mostly through contemporary cartoons. This interesting little book will be instructional for re-enactors and living history enthusiasts, as well as being a useful form of reference for those who might study the Home Guard in a perhaps more scholarly or sedentary way. Publisher: Amberley www.amberley-books.com ISBN: 978-1-4456-5097-5 Hardback: 288 pages RRP: £9.99

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British Officers Peak Caps of the Second World War O�iver C Dorrell

ONE OF the pleasures of reviewing books for Britain at War is the number of ‘niche’ yet fascinating titles that arrive on the editorial desks. Those from the renowned publisher, Schiffer, are no exception and Oliver C. Dorrell’s magnificent study of British Officers Peak Caps of the Second World War is a wonderful example of that publisher’s genre of titles. The depth of research and quality of content and production is nothing short of stunning and, like the Home Guard volume, this is a book that will appeal to collectors, researchers and re-enactors alike. It will also be extremely useful to those studying photographs of the period and, in that respect, it has already proved its worth to the Editor of this magazine in clarifying exactly what something was that he was looking at in a photograph. Yes, niche it certainly is although this highly specialised volume is one that is likely to prove its worth time and again. If this is your kind of book, then you won’t be disappointed! Publisher: Schiffer www.schifferbooks.com ISBN: 978-0-7643-4578-4 Hardback: 176 pages RRP: £58.50  

To Complete the Jigsaw:

British Military Intelligence In The First World War Nicholas van der Bijl

THE AUTHOR is certainly well qualified to research and understand the complexities of this subject having served in the British forces in Intelligence in Northern Ireland and The Falklands and his ability to write engagingly on the topic is at once apparent on getting into this book. This is a subject, of course, which has been much neglected by writers across the years and now Nicholas van der Bijl has given us a superb understanding of the officers and NCOs who pioneered army intelligence with counter-intelligence, protective security, wireless

interception and aerial photography. Indeed, this whole raft of elements made up the jigsaw to which the author refers in his title, and it is a jigsaw which van der Bijl skilfully assembles for the reader. Without a doubt, this book lifts yet a further veil from aspects of Britain’s intelligence and security apparatus of the First World War and is an extremely useful reference book to have on the shelf. Certainly, too, it is a corrective to popular misconceptions about the First World War and is highly recommended. Publisher: The History Press www.thehistorypress.co.uk ISBN: 978-0-7509-5613-0 Softback: 224 pages RRP: £16.99   

The Daily Telegraph: Military Obituaries (Book Three)

Edited by David Twiston Davies RENOWNED FOR their obituary columns, the Daily Telegraph excel at obituaries of the celebrated and the famous and these volumes of collected obituaries by Grub Street are an absolute goldmine. In terms of a book that ought to be on the shelves of researchers, military history students and writers then this is up there as a ‘must’. This Editor, certainly, finds himself reaching for them on a more than regular basis, being as they are a compendium of facts and information of notable military personnel who have passed away in recent years. Sadly, those ‘significant’ veterans from the Second World War are slipping away from us with an inevitable rapidity that will leave us, ‘ere long, with no more veterans of that time. When they are all gone, as sadly they will be, then these books will become standard biographical reference works where the lives of just about any notable military character can be found in detail. More than any other newspaper, the Daily Telegraph has always run military obituaries as almost a speciality. Fascinating as they are sad to read, and on such a regular basis, the act of collecting them together in these useful volumes is a masterstroke. Thank you, Grub Street! Publisher: Grub Street www.grubstreet.co.uk ISBN: 978-1-909808-31-7 Hardback: 416 pages RRP: £20.00 www.britainatwar.com 93

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Coventry:

MARCH 2016 ISSUE

Thursday, 14 November 1940

ON SALE FROM 25 FEBRAURY 2016

Frederick Taylor          Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing www.bloomsbury.com ISBN: 978-1-408860-27-4 Hardback: 368 pages RRP: £20.00

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CHIMING WITH the seventy-fifth anniversary of the bombing of Coventry comes a definitive account by historian Frederick Taylor and serves as a companion volume to Taylor’s highly acclaimed Dresden: Tuesday, 13 February 1945, seeing the author once again drawing upon a wealth of sources not only to provide a comprehensive portrait of a massed bomber raid but also to debunk myths, assess damage and to analyse consequences. Taylor opens with a calmbefore-the-storm build-up, showing Coventry in 1940 as a place of peace and economic prosperity. The blot on the horizon, however, is the dual threat of air raids and invasion. In early autumn, Coventry experiences only ‘disturbance attacks’ during the Battle of Britain, but by October these assaults are stepped up with the Luftwaffe High Command diverting bombers from London to the Midlands to target the aircraft industry and the homeland of ‘conservative, stubborn-dour Englishness’. Eventually the big raid comes, one that lasts over eleven hours and systematically destroys all aspects of city life. Taylor devotes whole chapters to Coventry’s longest night. Each one is packed with illuminating eye-witness interview-excerpts from BBC archives, many published for the first time. Firefighters, ambulance men and pilots share their ordeals, as do a range of civilians who dodged the showers of incendiaries and hid from the firestorm in shelters and cellars – emerging shell-shocked at dawn and dumbfounded by

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the devastation. The author also notes how the Times called Coventry ‘A Martyred City’, and that the New York Times railed against Germany’s ‘unfathomable barbarity’, before highlighting the lies and exaggerations spread by the triumphalist, propagandist German media. Coventry may well have been retaliation against the RAF’s attack on Munich, but his most forceful argument is refuting the claim that Churchill ‘sacrificed’ Coventry to protect the sanctity of Ultra. British Intelligence was aware that ‘Moonlight Sonata’ was an imminent aerial attack but had no idea where and when the blow was going to fall.  Coventry is, by turn, thrilling, sobering and edifying. Taylor’s revelations come in detailed, absorbing sections such as Britain’s sustained efforts to interfere with Germany’s radar beam technology and as scattered nuggets of trivia; for example, during the war, Jaguar was, curiously, still known as SS Cars. We reach the end of Taylor’s masterful book a good deal wiser as to the events, and even a little relieved as wholesale destruction finally gives way to recovery and reconciliation. This book is a must for anyone having an interest in the Luftwaffe bombing of Britain. REVIEWED BY MALCOLM FORBES

Illustrations  References/Notes Appendices  Index 



STAND-BY TO RAM!

It was one of the most unequal naval encounters in history. Steve Snelling charts the heroic story of a Yangtze riverboat’s last voyage and of her Captain’s desperate defiance in the face of hopeless odds during the final hours of the disastrous battle for Singapore.

WINTER LINE BLUES IN ITALY

The men of 16th Durham Light Infantry took part in the desperate struggle to capture Mount Camino and Mount Maggiore from December 1943 to January 1944. Peter Hart describes the terrible fighting in the depths of winter, where icy winds, freezing rain and snow formed an unholy trinity of misery in the steep mountainous terrain. The Germans resisted stubbornly, deploying mortars and machine guns to deadly effect. The Durhams had fought hard since the Salerno landings. Slowly, morale began to slip. But they were no ‘D-Day Dodgers’ – they were men tried to the very limits.

BLOODING THE FRIEDRICH

The Messerschmitt 109 E 'Emil' was the Luftwaffe's front line fighter during the Battle of Britain and into early 1941 and was considered a reasonable match against its Spitfire and Hurricane opponents, although the much-improved Me 109 F 'Friedrich' perhaps changed the balance in the favour of the Luftwaffe. Surprisingly, the new 109 F model came into front line service during 1940 and was being used operationally over England during the latter stages of the Battle of Britain. Chris Goss tells the story of the early days of the 'Friedrich's' fighting career.

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FIRST WORLD WAR DIARY FEBRUARY 1916, and toward the end of a relatively quiet winter the Western Front erupts as one of the bloodiest battles of the war, Verdun, begins. The bloodless fall of a French strongpoint is another shock. However, the Allies enjoy successes in peripheral theatres, and the Russians win a stunning victory over their Ottoman foes.

WAR AT SEA

11 February: The British light cruiser HMS Arethusa strikes a mine off Felixstowe, while under tow, she drifted onto a shoal and broke her back, sinking in shallow water.

HOME FRONT

2 February: Following the raid on the night of 31 January, Zeppelin L-19 is found floundering in the North Sea after taking fire from the Dutch coast. The British trawler which found the craft, King Stephen, returned to port to raise the alarm but L-19's 16 crew nevertheless drowned. 8 February: Sir Edward Grey formally requests naval assistance from Japan, who had assisted Britain earlier in the war. They respond with the widespread deployment of warships to patrol Far East waters and the Indian Ocean. 16 February: The War Office takes over both anti-aircraft defences in and around London as well as operational control of campaigns in Mesopotamia from the Admiralty and the India Office respectively.

UNITED STATES

10 February: Germany informs the US Government that defensively armed merchant vessels will be treated as belligerents from 1 March. A later reminder labels the ships as ‘cruisers’ and includes a refusal to continue to restrict the submarine campaign.

WAR AT SEA

1 February: The British steamer SS Appam, captured in January by the raider SMS Mowe, is brought to Norfolk, Virginia, by a prize crew. She flies a German ensign. Later, when the US enters the war, the prize crew became the first German prisoners of war in the United States.

WESTERN FRONT

21 February: The bloody battle for Verdun begins after a 10 hour, 1 million shell, German bombardment. A ring of 19 forts protected the French city, control of which was seen as vital by both sides. 21 February: French anti-aircraft guns use incendiary ammunition to shoot down Zeppelin LZ-77 at Revigny, it burns up mid-air and hits the grown with some force, setting off its bombload. All 22 crew are killed. 25 February: The partly disarmed and ill-prepared Fort Douaumont and its NCO-led 56 defending maintenance ‘troops’, the largest fort in the Verdun network, is stormed by less than 100 German raiders, not a shot is fired. The fort was not properly garrisoned or armed, as in the light of the ease the Belgian forts were overrun in 1914, the French saw them as obsolete. Pétain subsequently ordered all other forts in the area to be properly occupied and rearmed. Thousands would die in attempts to recapture Douaumont.

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PORTUGAL

23 February: At the behest of the British, neutral Portugal seizes 36 German and Austro-Hungarian ships in the Tagus.

FEBRUARY 1916 WORLD MAP WAR AT SEA

29 February: The British auxiliary cruiser SS Alcantara and the German raider SMS Greif (disguised as Norwegian merchant Rena) mutually sink each other in the North Sea after a bitter close range engagement. The sinking raider was later blown apart by cruiser HMS Comus and destroyer HMS Munster.

BLOCKADE OF GERMANY 23 February: The Ministry of Blockade, responsible for devising procedures to bring economic and commercial pressure against the enemy, is formed and headed by Lord Robert Cecil.

MEDITERRANEAN

16 February: Remnants of the Montenegrin Army lands at Corfu, joining Serbian troops there.

WAR AT SEA

8 February: The French armoured cruiser Amiral Charner is sunk off the Syrian coast. She was torpedoed by U-21 while travelling between Ruad Island and Port Said. Of her 400+ crew, only one is rescued.

CAUCASUSES

16 February: Russian troops, as part of an ongoing offensive, take the fortress at Erzerum. The second best defended town in the Ottoman Empire and its ring of eleven forts capitulated in five days, with the bulk of Ottoman troops evacuating. 15,000 Ottoman troops were killed, wounded, or captured, with 327 artillery pieces falling to the Russians.

EGYPT

26 February: The Senussi are defeated by the British at the Action of Agagiya. The Senussi leader, Jaafar Pasha, was captured.

WEST AFRICA

18 February: The last German holding in the Cameroons, the fortress at Mora, falls to the British. Bringing an end to the 524 day siege and within a few weeks the Kamerun Campaign. The only demand from the German commander, Captain Ernst von Raben, was £2,000 to pay his Askaris, which the British met.

EAST AFRICA

9 February: The German gunboat Hedwig von Wissman is sunk by HM ships Mimi and Fifi. The only remaining German presence on Lake Tanganyika was the Graf von Götzen. The battle also resulted in the capture of the first large German naval ensign of the war.

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EJECT! EJECT! ARGENTINE AIR LOSSES IN THE FALKLANDS

ABOVE: An abandoned Pucara ground attack fighter after the Falklands War.

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s we saw in last issue’s feature covering British Harrier losses during the Falklands War, the RAF’s 1 Squadron had already lost one aircraft (XZ988) in the opening phase of the Battle for Goose Green on 27 May 1982. The British had seen the large Argentine garrison and grass airstrip there as a threat to the right flank of their advance out of a beachhead at San Carlos

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and had decided that the settlement would have to be neutralised first. As the battle there reached it’s climax in the mid-afternoon of the following day, Friday 28 May, it was the Argentines’ turn to lose a fast-jet to ground fire as they attempted to give air support to the beleaguered garrison from their main base at Stanley. Two Aermacchi MB-339 jets of 1 Escuadrilla Aeronaval de Ataque

were ordered away on a sortie, just as the poor flying weather lifted slightly at 1500 hrs local time. Capitan de Corbetta Carlos Molteni (flying aircraft A-117) and Teniente de Fragata Daniel Miguel (in A-114) took off from Stanley and headed west for Goose Green. After an uneventful flight to the target, Carlos Molteni later recalled: ‘Close to the target we talked to the Air Force ground controller; the

EJECT! EJECT! Falklands: 1982

Following up his feature on British air losses in the Falklands conflict, Gordon Ramsey takes a look at a selection of Argentine losses during the 1982 war. As with the British losses, tangible evidence of these aircraft still survive today at many of the crash sites.

weather was a little bit better with more horizontal visibility. He gave us a reference point and an area to attack. I climbed a little to begin the attack run and updated Tte Miguel. I opened fire over hills where I saw British forces close to our lines. I fired more than half my ammunition. On my escape I saw something like an orange balloon on the ground. I thought it might be a missile, so I reduced power and turned back

towards it, then turned again getting closer to the ground. As I completed my turn I heard the controller saying: “Escape! Escape! Your wingman was hit!” Desperately, I asked if they had seen an ejection and he said they hadn’t. I felt very depressed. Returning to base, I remembered all the times we had shared together, his humour and courage. After landing at sunset, I went to HQ and was told that Goose Green was to be surrendered.’

A FLAMING METEOR

Molteni’s wingman, Daniel Miguel, had been targeted on his attack run by a Royal Marines Blowpipe missile operator Rick Strange of 3 Commando Brigade’s Air Defence Troop which was attached to 2 Para in order to beef up their air defences in the assault. Able to line up the missile’s acquisition system as the Aermacchi flew north-westward across the schoolhouse and the 

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EJECT! EJECT! Falklands: 1982

ABOVE: Teniente de Fragata Daniel Miguel. BELOW: Fuselage panel from Tte. Miguel’s Aermachi which crashed at Goose Green and marked with the word ‘Armada’ – or Navy, in Spanish.

settlement itself, Rick got the warhead away in a textbook launch. Tracking it onto the starboard wing root, the resulting explosion reduced the jet to a flaming meteor which bounced on the ground several times at the edge of the airstrip, just like a stone

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skipping across a pond. Several members of 2 Para’s B Company’s 4 Platoon, assaulting across the area, were lucky to be unscathed as the blazing wreckage tore through the air between them. Daniel Miguel was killed instantly. The crash site was cleared in the post war period as the grazing sheep would get pieces of aluminium trapped in their fleeces, leading to some interesting near-misses as electric shearing clippers exploded during the following shearing season. In the immediate aftermath of the battle, however, some relics were saved by various British servicemen visiting the battlefield including an impressive panel from the port side of the fuselage bearing part of the Argentine Naval ‘ARMADA’ insignia, collected by Surgeon Commander Rick Jolly of Ajax Bay Field Hospital fame. Other relics traced included some cockpit components including the Sperry Gyro Artificial Horizon control panel, found by Lieutenant Geoff Rayner of HMS Hydra when he walked over the site

the following month. Rick Strange returned to the Falklands on his own personal pilgrimage in 2002: ‘...to lay some ghosts to rest and pay my respects.'

DANGLING FROM THE PARACHUTE

As the British landings at San Carlos began at daybreak on 21 May,1982, Argentine troops in Port San Carlos settlement itself, under the command of Premier Teniente Carlos Esteban of Regimiento de Infanteria 25, managed to raise the alarm by radio before retreating as 3 Para landed on the beach in front of them. Accordingly, Grupo 3 Pucaras were prepared at Stanley airport to procure more accurate reports of precisely how many ships and troops were involved and to press home attacks on them where possible. In the event, the first pair to be ordered off had to be reduced to a single aircraft, A-531, due to technical delays with the other (A-509). Capitan Jorge Benitez, the pilot on this mission, takes up the story:

EJECT! EJECT! Falklands: 1982

‘On the first flight over the zone I didn’t find any British forces. I started a second reconnaissance, extending my turn and climbing a little - to 150 feet - so I could cover more ground with my observations. Then, over the hills, I saw a British frigate in San Carlos Strait/Falkland Sound. Her presence was unknown when I took off, so I ceased the turn and stayed very low to the side of Alberdi Hill (Mount Usborne), using it to protect me from radar detection. At the same time I climbed, improving my view of their activity. ‘Absorbed by this unexpected development in my mission and increasingly regretting being armed only with cannon and machine guns, I continued my approach, when I suddenly felt a powerful vibration in the aircraft’s structure. Controlling the plane, I saw the trail left by a British missile in its climb and this showed me the position occupied by troops who were probably with the enemy

forces that I was trying to find, having moved during the night to this place, some 5 kilometres distant from their last reported location. The missile had been fired from the front and below at a distance of about 150 metres and being so close, I had no opportunity to use my weapons against them. I didn’t know the extent of the damage either, so decided to get into the valley that opened to my right and away from the enemy to prevent them shooting me again when they saw that I was still flying. After about a minute, I reached the valley between the mountains located to the north and south of San Carlos, about 15 kilometres from where the missile had hit. I was conducting a more thorough check of my ‘plane when the right engine stopped. Almost simultaneously the flight controls loosened and there was no response to my inputs. The nose rose to 40 degrees and the aircraft banked 30 degrees to the left in the classic position before a corkscrew.

From that point, I must have stayed with the plane another 5-6 seconds, time spent feathering the working propeller, pushing the rudder to the right and setting the trim tab. These brought the plane’s nose towards the horizon. With this achieved, I pulled the ejection handle with my left hand, leaving the plane when I was far from home and with enemies close by. I immediately felt the force of the seat’s explosive cartridges and impact of the air in my face. I watched the black opening of the cockpit of the ‘plane that I had just abandoned as it was lost beneath me. I saw pieces of Plexiglass floating around me for some time. I felt the explosion that occurs when the seat separates and had the sensation of floating in the air, dangling from the parachute. It was 09.30 hours’. Benitez had been shot down by a Stinger surface-to-air shoulderlaunched missile fired by an SAS troop returning from a night diversionary raid on Goose Green, further to the 

TOP LEFT: Wreckage of Pucara A-531 at Flats Shanty today. TOP RIGHT: A sub-contractors airframe label bearing the construction number 031, the build number of Pucara A-531 ABOVE: Former Royal Marine, Rick Strange, re-visits the scene of Miguel’s crash. Strange was the ‘Blowpipe’ missile operator who was responsible for downing the Aermacchi.

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EJECT! EJECT! Falklands: 1982

TOP LEFT: Sgt Norman Hood poses with the Argentinian wing roundel from Pucara A-531. RIGHTT: A blurry image showing an A-4 Skyhawk about to attack HMS Glasgow taken from the flight deck of HMS Brilliant and with a Sea King helicopter in foreground. BELOW: A wrecked Aermacchi left behind by Argentine forces.

south. Evading capture by the British Special Forces, Benitez managed to make contact some ten hours later with Argentine troops sent out from the settlement and was rescued. Pucara A-531dived into the ground at Flats Shanty, where the broken remains lie to this day. Post-war, the wreck proved a popular respite from duty for British soldiers using the live-firing ranges set up at Mount Usborne, as the wreckage rested beside the track created to get to the ranges from Port San Carlos. One RAF Sergeant from 29 Squadron, Norman Hood, could not resist one of the wing roundels, which he posed with at the crash site for the camera – although he had to trim it down somewhat to later fit in into his kitbag!

DECIMATED BY HMS BRILLIANT

The Douglas A-4B Skyhawks of Grupo 5 de Caza, based at Rio Gallegos, were

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mainly used in the anti-shipping role, especially in the early part of the war and their first combat with British ships took place on 12 May, 1982. The Royal Navy Type 22 frigate, HMS Brilliant and Type 42 destroyer, HMS Glasgow, had been sent to the coast off Stanley to bombard Argentine positions ashore and to attempt to shoot down any Hercules cargo planes bringing supplies to the garrison.

Accordingly, Grupo 5 was tasked with the destruction of the two ships but the first flight of four aircraft sent in at mid-day were decimated by HMS Brilliant using her new Sea Wolf missile system in its first action - only one A-4 escaped unscathed, the other three pilots and aircraft being lost. Undeterred, the squadron tried again with another four-plane flight, ‘Oro’ Escadrille, comprising Capitan Antonio

EJECT! EJECT! Falklands: 1982

Zelaya flying C-225 as No.1 and flight leader; Teniente Juan Arraras in C-244 (No.2); Premier Teniente Fausto Gavazzi in C-248 (No. 3) and Alfrerez (or Ensign) Guillermo Dellipiane in C-239 as No. 4. Antonio Zelaya later recalled: ‘During the flight to the war zone my navigation equipment went out of service and I had to navigate by time and heading. I continued leading the Escadrille despite this. Halfway between way-points 1 (West Falkland) and 2 (Fitzroy) I saw Goose Green on my right, when in fact it should have been about seven miles to my left. I

corrected course and when I reached way-point 2, I began the final approach to the target. We were in radio silence. To my sides, wingmen Arraras and Gavazzi were flying lower than me, since I had to fly higher to check my navigation charts. After leaving the island and flying out to sea, heading south-east, I descended a little more and searched for the target. It was supposed to be 25km from the coast. ‘I had planned to fly three minutes at that speed and heading, since the ‘plane was travelling at 150 metres per second. If I couldn’t see the target then, I would return. But it wasn’t necessary. I saw two ships in front of me. I think they were sailing to the south-east and very fast, because I could see spray from their bows. The lead section would attack the ship to the north and the other two jets that

to the south, which was closer to me. Some kilometres before reaching the target, the ships opened fire. I didn’t see missiles but I heard the noise of the explosions of the AA fire. At the moment I attacked, I saw only the sight and the target. I didn’t see the crew or helicopters; the only thing I remember was the big radar antenna turning constantly. After passing over the ships, my wingmen said the sea seemed to be boiling, with the bullets falling on its surface. I found myself at 1,000 feet and turning towards the ships to see what was happening. On the ship ahead, there was a lot of movement and circles on the water, as if something had fallen into the sea. We started on our return flight, whilst my wingmen shouted happily. Then we evaluated our attack. Arraras said he believed he hit his ship; Gavazzi was completely certain, but I 

ABOVE: Premier Teniente Fausto Gavazzi of Grupo 5 de Caza. BELOW LEFT: Today, that same wing roundel is in a UK-based private collection.

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EJECT! EJECT! Falklands: 1982

BELOW & BOTTOM MIDDLE: Wreckage of Gavazzi’s Douglas Skyhawk C-248, pictured recently.

had doubts because I aimed at the stern and the speed of the ship surprised me. Dellepiane had used the same aiming point as me and he saw a helicopter on the flight deck of one of the ships. Arraras said ‘Thank God we made it!”, Gavazzi shouted “Viva la Patria! I hit it, I am sure I hit it!” Dellepiane was swearing. Once we had finished checking our aircraft for damage, we returned in pairs. Some minutes after leaving the target and flying over land close to Goose Green, wingman No. 4 reported that No. 3 had lost an aileron, then the plane turned upside down and crashed into the ground. Over Gran Malvina, Dellepiane had to climb fast to 40,000 feet because he had minimum fuel. With Tte Arraras, we continued to fly low for 90km, then we began the climb for home. Nobody talked. On final approach, we realised that our windscreens were covered with salt, impeding vision ahead. We tried to remove it by changing the temperature of the heater’s air from hot to cold, but we couldn’t clear it. Arraras also had a very big hole in one of his wings’. Fausto Gavazzi’s bomb had indeed hit HMS Glamorgan on the starboard

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side and passed right through the machinery space and out the port side just above the waterline without exploding, but causing enough damage to prevent the ship taking any further part in the campaign - she sailed for home on May 27. Gavazzi did not live long to savour his victory, however, as he flew too close to the Argentinian radar-predicted anti-aircraft guns at Goose Green and, without prior warning of his flight, the gunners had taken him to be another Sea Harrier on a bombing raid despite the yellow flashes on the fin and wings.

‘LOOK OUT! MISSILE!’

Once the British had successfully consolidated their landing sites around San Carlos on the west coast of East Falkland and begun their advance towards Stanley, so the focus of Argentine air attacks switched away from attacking Royal Navy shipping to bombing ground targets in order to impede this assault. Prime targets were the British stores around San

Carlos and Ajax Bay, as the bulk of the equipment and ammunition brought south by the Task Force had by now been unloaded. Grupo 5 was given the target on 27 May of the Ajax Bay refrigeration plant complex, and two flights each of three Skyhawks took off in mid-afternoon. The second flight, given the call sign ‘Truco’, was led by Premier Teniente Mariano Velasco, flying A-4B serial C-215 and he takes up the story: ‘The procedure was as always, medium level flight, air refuelling, four 500lb BRP bombs to be dropped at no less than 30 metres. Flying very low, we crossed San Carlos Strait (Falkland Sound) around its middle, we passed to the other island (East Falkland), then we turned left to fly along the west coast of the island to arrive at

EJECT! EJECT! Falklands: 1982

San Carlos Bay from the south. The refrigeration plant was on the left coast of the bay and on the other side was the settlement - we had to attack the former. We saw a lot of containers, one or two helicopters, pallets; I saw everything very briefly. The jet was at full power, with four bombs, flying at about 430 knots. When we passed the hills to the south of the bay (Sussex Mountains), we saw everything, four or five ships. I was on the left of the two-plane formation. We descended and approached the target flying very low. When I started to climb to drop the bombs, I heard impacts, not very loud but I felt as if a hammer was knocking the plane. Osses shouted “Look out, missile!” but apparently, the missile passed between our planes and caused no damage. We had the weapons panel armed. I dropped the bombs and immediately afterwards, I heard four or five powerful impacts. Immediately, I heard Osses telling me that I was on fire. He was behind me. At the same moment, I saw emergency lights coming on. He told me the left wing was on fire. I reduced throttle, then went to full throttle again to check if the engine was still working. I

heard noises and the hydraulic and fuel emergency lights came on. Osses then shouted “Eject! Eject!” But I climbed and flew over the hills that separated the bay from San Carlos Strait. Then I headed west. The ship that had fired at me was (now) to my right on the bay, and we exited to the left. ‘As I was flying over the strait, I saw smoke coming from my airplane in the mirror, below the flaps. I saw the coast of Gran Malvina (West Falkland) and began to climb. I realised I had to jettison the tanks and I also released the TERs. Using the emergency handle, I jettisoned everything. I reduced throttle, climbed to 1,000 feet and at 250 knots, I ejected over the island. I knew that I had Port Howard on my left, even though I couldn’t see it but people there heard my plane explode. I landed under my parachute and heard aircraft but I couldn’t see them; they turned maybe twice above me, then headed east. I hid for some time. Later, I prepared my stuff and after night had fallen I started walking. Although I knew there were Argentine troops in Port Howard, we had received information that they might have surrendered and so I headed for Fox Bay. I walked day and night,

resting every 40 minutes, through the 28th, and on the morning of 29 May I found a refuge. I had walked about 50km. It was an empty hut but had some stored food, so I stayed there until three islanders arrived on horses on the 31st and told me they would tell the garrison at Port Howard where I was. On the night of the 28th I had seen the combat at Goose Green; I saw flares in the sky and heard explosions. On 1 June, a Land Rover arrived with an Argentine doctor and an islander driving it. We went to the crash site and the islander asked me if he could take the jet’s canopy. I replied ‘Yes’ and we loaded it onto the back of the Land Rover, over my feet, and set off to Port Howard’.

TOP: The ship’s bells from HMS Brilliant and HMS Glasgow, both involved in the action on 12 May 1982. ABOVE: Wreckage of Premier Teniente Velasco’s Skyhawk, C-215, near Port Howard.

SCARS ON THE LANDSCAPE

Velasco’s Skyhawk, C-215 had crashed not far from Port Howard itself and he would probably have been better off remaining where he was and just waiting for a lift! The islander who had coveted the jet’s cockpit canopy when Velasco was collected was the settlement manager, Robin Lee, and he later set up a little museum beside the manager’s house (now a guest 

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EJECT! EJECT! Falklands: 1982

RIGHT: The cockpit canopy of Velasco’s C-215. BELOW: The cockpit side of C-215, bearing the aircraft number.

BELOW LEFT: Tail section of Velasco’s Skyhawk pictured today. BELOW: C-215 Grupo 5 badge from the fuselage.

hostel, catering for adventurous tourists) where it can be seen today alongside the ejector seat from the same aircraft. Other items collected in the immediate post-war period include a piece of skinning bearing most of the Grupo 5 badge and the complete port side of the cockpit bearing the aircraft serial number and a yellow

ship ‘kill’ victory marking - supposed for many years to represent HMS Coventry, sunk by Velasco on 25 May. However, C-215 did not take part in that raid and as it was Argentine practice to mark all the aircraft which had taken place in a successful attack, the marking cannot relate to that ship. Pilots switched between aircraft, and

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never had a regular machine to fly and so the ‘kill’ markings related to the aircraft’s participation and not to the pilot. It may, however, relate to HMS Argonaut, attacked by Premier Teniente Alberto Filippini on 21 May, or perhaps to an attack on 24 May when the Royal Fleet Auxiliary ships Sir Lancelot, Sir Bedivere and Sir Galahad were all hit and damaged by bombs which fortunately failed to explode. (NB: the last-named ship was set on fire in a subsequent attack on 8 June with fifty lives lost). For many years, gunners on both HMS Fearless and HMS Intrepid were given the credit for Velasco’s demise but careful analysis of the flight path and positions of the ships would lend credence to the claims of HMS Intrepid, as C-215 was hit in the left wing and Fearless was over to the aircraft’s right, on the opposite side. HMS Intrepid,, however, was dead ahead. Able Seaman (M) Neil Wilkinson

remembered that rounds from his 40mm Bofors gun hit their target, and clearly saw his shells cause smoke to issue from one of the two A-4s as they attacked him, head on, facing the bows of the ship. On the ground, six men ashore died that day: Sapper Pradeep Gandhi of 59 Independent Commando Squadron, Royal Engineers: Lance Corporal Colin Davison of the Commando Logistics Regiment, Royal Marines: Marine Stephen McAndrews of 40 Commando and Sergeant Roger Enefer, Marine Paul Callan and Marine David Wilson, all of 45 Commando. There can be no doubting the valour and professionalism exhibited by the Argentinian pilots who participated in the Falklands air war, especially in the face of heavy losses. Today, more than thirty years after the event, it is possible to see evidence of those losses still scarring the Falkland Islands landscape. 

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GREAT WAR GALLANTRY

February 1916

GREAT WAR GALLANTRY February 1916

Throughout the First World War, the many announcements of British and Commonwealth gallantry awards appeared in the various issues of The London Gazette. As part of our major monthly series covering the period of the Great War commemorations, we examine some of the actions involved and summarise all of the awards announced in February 1916. BELOW: The German battlecruiser SMS Moltke in the Hampton Roads, on the East Coast of the United States, in 1912. HMS E.1’s attack on Moltke on 19 August 1915, during the Battle of the Riga Gulf, was one of the actions for which Commander Noel Frank Laurence was awarded the Distinguished Service Order in February 1916. (BOTH US LIBRARY OF CONGRESS)

F

OR ONLY the second time since the first announcement of the award of a Victoria Cross during the Great War, February 1916 saw no further VCs being gazetted. In fact, just 273 gallantry awards were listed in The London Gazette that month. One of these, on the 24th, was the Distinguished Service Order for Commander Noel Frank Laurence RN. The citation stated that it had been ‘for his services in charge of British submarines operating in the Baltic Sea’. In an obituary published in The Times after his death on 26 January 1970, Admiral Sir Noel Laurence, KCB, DSO & Bar was described as being ‘among the most distinguished submarine commanders in the First World War’. Noel Frank Laurence was born in 1882 and entered the Navy in 1899. He became a lieutenant in 1904, when

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he was appointed to specialize in submarines. The outbreak of war in 1914 found Laurence commanding the E-class submarine E.1. On 15 October 1914, E.1, in company with E.9 commanded by LieutenantCommander Max Horton, was ordered from Gorleston to sail for the Baltic to join the Royal Navy submarine flotilla which was operating there. Attached to the Russian Baltic Fleet, the British squadron of nine submarines had the primary role of preventing the supply of iron ore from Sweden to Germany. On 18 October 1914, E.1 unsuccessfully attacked the armoured cruiser SMS Victoria Louise in Kiel Bay. The torpedo ran too deep and missed. On 19 August 1915, Laurence torpedoed and damaged the German battlecruiser SMS Moltke during what has come to be referred to as the Battle of the Gulf of Riga. The German Navy had launched

a ‘foray’ in the Gulf of Riga in an attempt to destroy Russian naval forces in the area, including the pre-dreadnought battleship Slava, and to use the minelayer Deutschland to mine, and block, the entrance to Moon Sound. The German forces, under the command of Vice Admiral Hipper, included eight battleships, the battlecruisers Moltke, Von der Tann, and Seydlitz, and a number of smaller craft. The first attempt to clear the gulf on 8 August 1915, failed. A second attempt was made eight days later, and met with success. After three days, the Russian minefields had been cleared and the flotilla entered the gulf on 19 August. Repeated reports of Allied submarines in the area, as well as the actions of E.1, prompted a German withdrawal from the gulf the following day. Laurence’s part in the battle was described later 1916 by Rudyard Kipling:

GREAT WAR GALLANTRY February 1916

‘She [E.1] went out one summer day and late – too late – in the evening sighted three transports. The first she hit. While she was arranging for the second, the third inconsiderately tried to ram her before her sights were on. So it was necessary to go down at once and waste whole minutes of the precious scanting light. When she rose, the stricken ship was sinking and shortly afterwards blew up. The other two were patrolling nearby. It would have been a fair chance in daylight, but the darkness defeated her and she had to give up the attack. ‘It was E.1 who during thick weather came across a squadron of battle-cruisers – and got in on a flanking ship – probably the Moltke [on the morning of the 19th]. The destroyers were very much on the alert, and she had to dive at once to avoid one who only missed her by a few feet. Then the fog shut down and stopped further developments. Thus do time and chance come to every man.’ The torpedo fired by E.1’s crew at Moltke was not spotted until it was approximately 200 yards away; without time to take avoiding action, the German warship was struck in the bow torpedo room. The explosion damaged several torpedoes in the ship, but they did not detonate themselves. Eight men were killed, and 435 tonnes of water entered the ship. The ship was repaired at Blohm & Voss in Hamburg, between 23 August and 20 September the same year. For his work in the Baltic, alongside the DSO Laurence was awarded two decorations by the Russians – the orders of St George, 4th class, and St. Vladimir, 4th class with swords. In 1916 he took command of a new type of submarine, the J-class HMS J.1, with which he torpedoed two German battleships near Jutland. He was awarded a Bar to the DSO and made Chevalier de la Legion of d’Honneur. He ended the First World War in command of HMS Bonaventure and of a submarine flotilla. In 1919 he

was promoted to captain. In 1930, Laurence became Commodore of Devonport Naval Barracks for two years, and was subsequently appointed RearAdmiral (Sub- marines). From 1936 to 1937 he was Vice-Admiral (Aircraft Carriers). In 1938 he was appointed Admiral Commanding Reserves, before becoming the chief naval representative at the Ministry of Aircraft Production in 1941. He retired from the Royal Navy in 1943. He was awarded the CB in 1934 and promoted to KCB in 1938. Another of the awards to naval personnel in February 1916 was the DSO to Lieutenant-Commander George Hamilton Dennistoun. Dennistoun was born in Peel Forest, New Zealand, on 23 September 1884 and entered the Royal Navy as a cadet on 15 May 1899 at the Royal Naval College, Dartmouth, passing out on 15 September the following year. However, Dennistoun’s DSO was not his first recognition of gallantry in the Great War, as the following extract from his biography at the National Museum of the Royal New Zealand Navy reveals: ‘On 29 September, while awaiting departure George was on deck [of His Majesty’s New Zealand Transport No.4 Tahiti, as Naval Transport Officer] BELOW: The German battlecruiser SMS Moltke.

and saw a man fall from a nearby ship, the SS Karamea. He immediately dived into the harbour fully clothed and swam about 55m to the man’s rescue. The quartermaster of the Karamea also saw the incident and jumped in with a line. Together they got the line around the man and he was hauled on board. On 23 October the Directors of the New Zealand Royal Humane Society awarded their Bronze Medal to George for his actions on that day and subsequently he was similarly awarded the British Royal Humane Society Bronze Medal.’ 

TOP: The British E-class submarine E.1. Under Laurence’s command, E.1 was the first Royal Navy submarine to enter the Baltic in the First World War. In late 1915, Lieutenant Commander Laurence was recalled home and Lieutenant Commander Fenner took command. ABOVE: Noel Laurence, commander of HMS E.1, on the right, is pictured beside Max Horton, commander of submarine HMS E.9, during the pair’s during service with British Submarine Flotilla in the Baltic.

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GREAT WAR GALLANTRY

February 1916

GALLANTRY AWARDS GAZETTED IN FEBRUARY 1916 Victoria Cross Distinguished Service Order Distinguished Service Cross Military Cross Distinguished Flying Cross* Air Force Cross* Distinguished Conduct Medal Conspicuous Gallantry Medal Distinguished Service Medal Military Medal* Distinguished Flying Medal* Air Force Medal* Total

41 4 82 134 12 273

* Indicates an award that has not yet been instituted. Mentions in Despatches are not included.

BELOW: A drawing depicting Flight Sub-Lieutenant Charles Walter Graham and Flight Sub Lieutenant Arthur Strachan Ince shooting down the German seaplane on 14 December 1915.

It was only a matter of months before Dennistoun undertook the actions for which he was awarded the DSO. In August 1914, British forces attacked the German colonial base at Sphinx Hafen on the shore of Lake Nyasa (now called Liuli and Lake Malawi respectively). During the raid, the large German Government Steamer SS Wissman had been disabled, but by May 1915 it was reported that the vessel was being repaired.

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ABOVE: Aged 23, Graham was killed in a flying accident in the UK on 8 September 1916. He was buried in Barnes Old Cemetery. (COURTESY OF THE COMMONWEALTH WAR GRAVES COMMISSION)

‘It was therefore decided to mount a combined naval and military expedition to either refloat and take the Wissman or complete its destruction, continues the National Museum of the Royal New Zealand Navy’s biography of Dennistoun. ‘On 29 May the force embarked in the Guendolen and the Universities Mission ship Chauncey Maples, proceeded to Sphinxhaven [sic], where the troops were landed at 3.00am the next morning. The German position was taken, with gunfire support being provided by Guendolen and the Wissman destroyed by dynamite. The Germans returned as the troops were being re-embarked and again Guendolen provided cover from the 6 pounders and also machine guns. For this part in this operation and the months leading up to it, George was made a companion of the Distinguished Service Order. The Colonial Office also recommended that his services be brought to the notice of the Admiralty.’ Another of the DSOs announced in February 1916 was that of Flight SubLieutenant Charles Walter Graham of No.1 Wing (Dunkerque), Royal Naval Air Service. Whilst flying a Nieport seaplane on patrol, Graham and his observer (gunner), Flight Sub Lieutenant Arthur Strachan Ince, engaged a German seaplane trying to bomb a damaged British merchant off the Belgian coast. The RNAS aircraft proved victorious, the enemy seaplane being shot down. However, engine problems forced Graham to ditch in the North Sea, though he and Ince were rescued. For his part in the combat, Ince was awarded one of the four Distinguished

Service Crosses gazetted in February 1916. Born in Toronto on 31 October 1892, Ince was the first Canadian airman to shot down a German aircraft in the First World War. Shooting down enemy aircraft also led to the award of two of the other DSCs in February 1916 – those to Captain Dudley Leigh Aman and Temporary Captain Guy Evans. Born on 16 May 1884 in Cheshire, Aman was educated at Marlborough and the Royal Naval College at Greenwich. He enlisted in the Royal Marine Artillery when war broke out in 1914, being attached to the Third Fleet and transferred to France. He was Mentioned in Despatches and awarded the DSC for his actions during the Second Battle of Ypres ‘for his services with the Royal Marine Artillery Anti-Aircraft Brigade’: ‘Captain Aman has commanded two sections of anti-aircraft guns in the salient of Ypres continuously since the 3rd May, 1915, and has shown great ability and zeal, and a fine example of coolness and courage under fire.’ After the war, Aman made five unsuccessful attempts to enter Parliament as a Labour MP. He was created a Baron in 1930, taking the title of Lord Marley from his home near Haslemere. Formed at Eastney in November 1914, the RMA’s Anti-Aircraft Brigade was armed with QF 2-pounder naval guns mounted on armoured lorries. The brigade had four batteries, lettered from ‘A’ through to ‘D’, each of which was equipped with four guns each. Though anti-aircraft gunnery was an undeveloped science at the start of the war, the RMA were skilled in engaging moving targets.

GREAT WAR GALLANTRY February 1916 For his part, Temporary Captain Evans had ‘commanded a section of anti-aircraft guns in the salient at Ypres continuously since the 12th May, 1915, and has shown an example of conspicuous coolness and courage on every occasion under the continual conditions of fire to which the section has been exposed’. The awards announced in February 1916 were still recognising gallantry and actions relating to the Gallipoli campaign – and no more so than the posthumous DSO announced for Captain William Pike of the 1st Battalion Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers. The planned breakout from Anzac Cove in Sir Ian Hamilton’s August offensive on Gallipoli had not succeeded. The landings further up the Peninsula at Suvla Bay had also failed in their objectives but at least here there was space to deploy Allied troops and mount a well-structured assault upon the Turkish positions on the dominating Anafarta Hills. On 9 August 1915, an attempt was made to capture what was referred to as Scimitar Hill (because of its curved summit) just beyond the eastern end of the bay. Its capture would threaten the flank of the Turkish positions overlooking Anzac Cove and help the Australians and New Zealanders in their efforts to breakout of their narrow beachhead. The attack failed but was renewed the following day by the 53rd (East Anglia) Division. It too was repulsed with heavy losses.

On 15 August Major General Beauvoir De Lisle took over command of IX Corps from General Stopford. De Lisle immediately abandoned most ideas of an offensive, seeking instead to secure the ground already held. He also sought to link Suvla with Anzac to widen the ground held by the Allies and help relived the forces restricted to that tiny beach. To achieve this, though, meant taking Scimitar Hill and the neighbouring W Hills to the south, which were part of the Anafarta Spur that marked the southern edge of the Suvla sector. De Lisle knew that there could be no half measures, but as he had no intention of attacking on any other sector he could deploy his full strength against these hills. The great assault, which would be the largest single-day attack of the campaign, was scheduled for 21 August. The plan was that the 29th Division would attack Scimitar Hill, the 11th (Northern) Division would take the W Hills and the Australians would assault the location known as Hill 60 from Anzac Cove. In British Regiments at Gallipoli, the historian Ray Westlake records the 1st Inniskilling’s part in the attack. ‘A’, ‘B’ and ‘D’ companies advanced through the men of the 1st King’s Own Scottish Borderers at 15.30 hours. Sir Frank Fox records that for the first 400 yards the battalion had few casualties. Soon, however, ‘officers and men were swept down as by an invisible scythe’. The first Turkish trench was taken roughly fifteen minutes later. At this point, sections of the British attackers fell back, pushed halfway back down the hill in disorder and suffering heavy casualties. The men were, however, then rallied whilst some 150 yards from the top of the hill. With the KOSB and South Wales Borderers having moved forward in support, a second charge was made up the slope, but did not get home, the enemy standing on their parapets and firing from the hip and

throwing hand grenades. The author David Cameron, in Gallipoli: The Final Battles and Evacuation, notes that ‘Captain William Pike … called for volunteers and rushed the summit; neither he nor those who went with him returned. Another Inniskilling officer, Captain Gerald O’Sullivan, who had won the Victoria Cross at Krithia less than two months earlier, called for another attempt to takes the crest of the hill. O’Sullivan and 50 of his men charged up the slope but only one wounded Sergeant returned. The bodies of Pike and O’Sullivan were also never recovered.’ Meanwhile, the troops attacking the nearby W Hills had lost their way and the assault fizzled out in confusion. This meant that the Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers came under heavy fire from the Turks on the W Hills and were forced to abandon the summit. O’Sullivan was reported as having led his last attack calling out ‘One more charge for the honour of the Old Regiment’. 

BELOW LEFT: Captain William Pike of the 1st Battalion Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers, whose posthumous DSO was announced in February 1916. BOTTOM: The scene of Captain William Pike’s final gallantry, Scimitar Hill, as it is today, as seen roughly from the west.

RUNNING TOTAL OF

GALLANTRY AWARDS AS OF THE END OF FEBRUARY 1916 Victoria Cross Distinguished Service Order Distinguished Service Cross Military Cross Distinguished Flying Cross Air Force Cross Distinguished Conduct Medal Conspicuous Gallantry Medal Distinguished Service Medal Military Medal Distinguished Flying Medal Air Force Medal Total

156 1402 181 2355 5075 26 671 9866

www.britainatwar.com 111

LORD ASHCROFT'S "HERO OF THE MONTH"

Corporal Alfred George Drake VC

Corporal

ALFRED GEORGE

LORD ASHCROFT'S "HERO OF THE MONTH"

DRAKE VC

SACRIFICE

AGGRESSION • BOLDNESS INITIATIVE • LEADERSHIP SKILL • ENDURANCE

The many Victoria Crosses and George Crosses in the Lord Ashcroft Gallery at the Imperial War Museum in London are displayed under one of seven different qualities of bravery. Corporal Alfred George Drake’s award is part of the collection, and Lord Ashcroft feels that it falls within the category of sacrifice: “In what is apparently the simplest quality of bravery, Sacrifice epitomises selfless responsibility. Noble, strong, dependable, life is offered up to protect, save or comfort others. It is not always lost, but it is always freely given.” RIGHT: An artist’s depiction of Corporal Drake tending the wounded Lieutenant Henry Tryon on 23 November 1915. (ALL IMAGES HISTORIC MILITARY PRESS UNLESS STATED OTHERWISE)

MIDDLE RIGHT: Corporal Alfred Drake of the 8th Battalion, The Rifle Brigade. (PRINCE

CONSORT’S OWN)

A

LFRED DRAKE was born in Stepney, east London, on 10 December 1893, and he grew up in the East End with his five siblings. By the 1911 census, only four children were still living in the family’s modest four-room house, along with their father, Robert, a dock worker with The Port of London Authority, and their mother, Mary Ann. The family was poor, surviving on the father’s wages of around 18 to 21 shillings a week. Young Alfred attended Ben Jonson County Council School until he was 14, leaving to find work. Aged 17, he was employed as a dock messenger. On 3 September 1914, after the outbreak of the Great War and by now 20 years old, Drake enlisted into the Rifle Brigade. He arrived in France in May 1915 and, as a result of proving himself as a competent solider, he was promoted to corporal nine weeks later. On the night of 23 November 1915, Drake was serving with the 8th Battalion, the Rifle Brigade, at Brique, Belgium, when he and three others were sent into No Man’s Land to reconnoitre close to the German lines. However, the four-man patrol was discovered by the enemy, which

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opened fire with a machine-gun and rifles, wounding both the officer and one of his men. One of the two uninjured men carried one of his wounded comrades back towards Allied lines, leaving Drake to care for the wounded officer. Drake was last seen kneeling besides the officer and tending his wounds, despite coming under a heavy enemy fire. Later, a rescue party came across Drake and the officer, who was identified as Lieutenant Henry Tryon. Although Tryon was alive and was bandaged, Drake, aged 21, was dead besides him having been riddled with enemy bullets. His posthumous VC was announced on 22 January 1916* when his citation concluded with the words: ‘He had given his own life and saved his Officer.’ Unusually, Drake’s middle name of “George” was missing from the citation and it also contained an error: it incorrectly listed “La Brique” as in France rather than Belgium. Sadly, Tryon himself did not survive the First World War.

Although he made a good recovery from the wounds he received during Drake’s VC action, and later rejoined his regiment and was promoted to captain, he was killed on 15 September 1916. Drake’s posthumous Victoria Cross was presented to his father, Robert, by King George V in an investiture at Buckingham Palace on 16 November 1916. Drake is buried at La Brique Military Cemetery, Plot 1, Row C, Grave 2. A memorial to Drake was unveiled by the Earl of Tryon at Ben Johnson County Council School in April 1923. A cousin of Tryon, whose life Drake saved, was present at the ceremony. Furthermore, also in April 1923, a lectern was dedicated to Drake at St Thomas Church, Stepney. However, in 1941, as a result of enemy bombing during the Second World War, this church was badly damaged and it had to be closed to the public. Later, during the 1950s, the ruins of the church were demolished and flats were built on the site.

LORD ASHCROFT'S "HERO OF THE MONTH" Corporal Alfred George Drake VC

VICTORIA CROSS HEROES Lord Ashcroft KCMG PC is a businessman, philanthropist, author and pollster. His five books on gallantry include Victoria Cross Heroes Heroes.. For more information, please visit: www.victoriacrossheroes.com Lord Ashcroft’s VC and GC collection is on public display at Imperial War Museum, London. For more information visit: www.iwm.org. uk/heroes uk/heroes. For details about his VC collection, visit: www. lordashcroftmedals.com For more information on Lord Ashcroft’s work, visit: www.lordashcroft.com. Follow him on Twitter: @LordAshcroft

I purchased Drake’s medal group privately in 2001 and I feel privileged to be the custodian of this brave man’s gallantry and service medals. I was deeply moved when I learnt the details of Drake’s self-sacrifice and his outstanding loyalty towards his officer.

and coughing on their own poison gas, which had drifted back into the British front lines after the canisters had been fired at the German positions. Thereafter, two enemy machineguns, which had escaped damage during the artillery bombardment, took a terrible toll on the advancing British soldiers. A few ‘Tommies’ managed to reach the enemy’s barbedwire defences but were soon cut down by heavy fire. Unsurprisingly, the attack faltered and soldiers were forced to take cover in shell holes and natural hollows. At 07.30 hours those few who had survived began to straggle back to their trenches although young Peachment was not amongst them. In the event, Captain Guy Dubs survived serious injuries and later wrote an affectionate letter to

Peachment’s mother, Mary, spelling out how courageous her son had been advancing to within some fifteen yards of the German trench. At this point, a German bomb exploded, blowing away part of Dubs’ face. He awoke to find Peachment coolly kneeling besides him, despite heavy enemy fire. Dubs wrote: ‘He asked me for my field dressing and started bandaging my head quite oblivious to the fire. His first thought was to help me, and though there was a shell hole nearby where he might have got cover, he never thought of doing so. Of course the Germans were bound to see us sitting up, and one of them threw a bomb which hit your son in the chest while at the same time I received a bullet also in the chest.’ Dubs tried to drag Peachment into a shell hole but at that point a bullet hit the young private in the head and killed him. Peachment was awarded a posthumous VC. * No VCs were announced in The London Gazette during February 1916 so Lord Ashcroft has instead chosen for his write-up one of the recipients who was awarded his VC in late January 1916. 

TOP LEFT: Private George Peachment, described as ‘one of the youngest men in his battalion’, depicted assisting Captain Dubs in the moments before his death. Peachment was one of the youngest Great War VC recipients.

BELOW: Corporal Alfred Drake was buried in La Brique Cemetery No.2, which is located to the northeast of Ypres.

(COURTESY OF THE COMMONWEALTH WAR GRAVES COMMISSION)

In fact, Drake’s bravery is reminiscent of another young soldier whose medal group is also part of my VC collection. Private George Peachment was just 18 years old, having lied about his age, when he found himself in the thick of the fighting at the Battle of Loos on 25 September 1915. Men of the 2nd Battalion King’s Royal Rifles and 1st Battalion Loyal North Lancs found themselves forced to go ‘over the top’ because they were choking www.britainatwar.com 113

The First W

rld War in Objects

DIED OF WOUNDS

TELEGRAM AT 09.35 hours on Thursday, 21 March 1918, one million German soldiers left their trenches to attack the British Expeditionary Force along a front of nearly fifty miles. The Kaiserschlacht, or Spring Offensive, was Germany’s last major effort to win the war. The main German attack was directed at British positions which stretched from the Somme to Flanders. It was thought that if the British line could be broken, the French would surrender. It was the British Fifth Army under General Gough which fared worst, finding itself unable to hold its line against the onslaught. By late afternoon on 21 March, the southern part of Gough’s line had been forced back and, in agreement with Haig, he correspondingly pulled back. In fact, Gough withdrew seven miles to take up positions behind the Crozat Canal. It was the first time since the first month of the war that the BEF had had to retreat to such an extent. By midnight the Germans had taken, by direct assault and capture, just short of 100 square miles of ground previously held by the British. General Byng’s Third Army, meanwhile, was able to hold back the Germans but by the evening of that first day of the Spring Offensive the British Army had suffered 38,000 casualties. The Germans had experienced even greater losses, amounting to almost 40,000 men. Total losses for 21 March were more than 78,000 and were the heaviest losses in a single day’s fighting during the entire war. One of the many British soldiers wounded that day was 33-year-old Quartermaster Serjeant Thomas Dawdry of the 11th (Prince Albert's Own) Hussars. A Londoner, Dawdry had enlisted in the army in 1904 aged 18. On 21 March 1918 the 11th Hussars were deployed in the dismounted role at Villecholles, east of Vermand. In the face of the enemy’s

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NO.19

ABOVE: The telegram sent to Bridget Dawdry informing her that her husband had died of wounds. (COURTESY OF THE DAWDRY FAMILY; WWW.

EUROPEANA1914-1918.EU)

LEFT: Thomas Dawdry pictured with his family. (COURTESY OF THE DAWDRY FAMILY; WWW. EUROPEANA1914-1918.EU)

BOTTOM LEFT: After the war, the graves in Marchelepot British Cemetery, including Thomas Dawdry’s, were moved to Roye New British Cemetery – seen here. (COURTESY OF THE

COMMONWEALTH WAR GRAVES COMMISSION)

offensive the situation became confused and disorderly – it was during the subsequent fighting that Dawdry was badly wounded. Passed down the casualty evacuation chain, by the late evening of the 21st Dawdry had been admitted to 32 Casualty Clearing Station. It was there, at 03.00 hours the next morning, that he succumbed to his wounds. Five days later, a telegram was sent to his widow, Bridget, at 148 Townsend Street, Dublin. At this stage, all Bridget was informed was that her husband had died of wounds. On the same day that the official telegram arrived at Dawdry’s marital home, a Matron at 32 Casualty Clearing Station managed to find a spare moment to write to Bridget. ‘I am very sorry to have to tell you that your husband … died of wounds,’ she wrote, adding that ‘everything possible was done for him’. A further letter from the hospital staff expanded further: ‘[He] was suffering from a severe wound in the chest. He was practically unconscious the whole time he was there (a few hours only) and so was spared a lot of suffering. He was unable to leave a message and he passed away the same night that he was admitted at 3am. He was buried at Marchelepot Cemetery (about 7 miles S.W. of Peronne, and now in German hands) and a cross was placed on his grave.’

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